Philippe Pouzenc

A young couple has just got married. He is an advertising artist in an agency on the Champs-Elysees. She is a window dresser in a department store on Boulevard Haussmann.

Lamiel (Anna Karina) is a poor orphan girl who climbs her way to the social elite in this 19th-century costume drama. A doctor (Michel Bouquet) lives vicariously through Anna as he oversees the progress of his female protégé. Lamiel finds love with a young thief who steals into her bedroom after her marriage to a penniless count (Jean-Clause Brialy), and the two experience a romantic rendezvous of forbidden love after Lamiel goes from being a poor peasant woman to living a life of comparative luxury.

Paula Nelson goes to Atlantic City to meet her lover, Richard Politzer, but finds him dead and decides to investigate his death. In her hotel room, she meets Typhus, whom she ends up knocking out. His corpse is later found in the apartment of David Goodis, a writer. Paula is arrested and interrogated. From then on, she encounters many gangsters.