Widowed carpenter Vincenz Olivier lives with his 8-year-old son Boubou in a small French town. But on the day he is supposed to marry the mayor′s daughter, Louise, his dark past catches up with him: Ten years ago, Vincenz – whose real name is Leon Bernier – escaped from prioson after being convicted of murdering his lover′s sister. Taking Boubou with him, Vincenz, who then and now still denies the crime, flees from the police in a desperate attempt to prove his innocence.
When Albers takes his drug-addicted opera star sister Gerda to a sanitarium, they both become targets of slimy dope peddler Peter Lorre, who fears that Gerda will blow the whistle on him. Lorre kidnaps the woman, leading Albers on a frantic chase.
When a prostitute is murdered in a cheap Berlin boarding house, an investigating judge suspects that the killer is her boyfriend, unaware that his own son and daughter are also mixed up in the case.
In a distant Teutonic village, people dance and drink merrily celebrating a wedding feast. However, an elderly man tells the villagers that the valley where they live wasn't always happy but sorrowful. This was due to the tyranny of the master of the mountains who ruled the valley despotically.
