Jordan, a famous criminal lawyer, will only represent clients, of whose innocence he is convinced (must be financially not-too-well-off). One day, his future son-in-law, the jeweler Fabian, is arrested on suspicion of murder on the day before his wedding. He is said to have murdered his ex-wife, the dancer Ria Norady. The conductor Gillmore found her dead in her dressing room shortly after a visit from Fabian. Gisela Jordan asks her father to defend him. After speaking to Fabian, the lawyer is convinced he's innocent. But since there is no proof of this, he decides to go and try and find the real murderer himself.
After the two vagabonds Robert and Bertram flee from prison, they get to know the innkeeper’s daughter Lenchen at the “Silver Swan” Inn. Because her father is in desperate need of money, Lenchen is to marry the creditor Biedermeier instead of her beloved military recruit Michel. In order to prevent that, Robert and Bertram travel to the capital and, under false names, manage to make their way into the house of the Jewish commercial advisor Ipelmeyer, to whom Biedermeier is deep in debt. During an evening costume ball, the bums steal the family jewels and give them to Lenchen’s father. Lenchen and Michael get married and Robert and Bertram flee in a balloon into the sky.
Because the soulful county doctor in a small spa town in the mountains has interfered with the business of selling "healing waters", he incurs the enmity of the local shopkeepers. And for that reason, his candidacy for the post of District Medical Officer is thwarted.
In a remote village in Southern Bavaria, hostilities run rampant between a farmer and a luxury hotel proprietor. The former has a smelly dung heap and he hopes to force the hotelier into buying him out at a large profit.
