Bruno Fioretti, known as "Mandrake", is an inveterate gambler who never misses a day at the horse racing track in Rome. He is doubly unlucky: he bets too much on one horse, and his wife is sleeping with his best friend because Mandrake is always at the track. Penniless and cuckolded, Mandrake decides to make one last bet.
In the decadent Roaring Twenties, a beautiful woman engages in affairs with two men, playing them against each other.
Biting, sadistic satire punctuates this dark comedy about a feckless musician named Marcello Ferrari (Nino Manfredi) whose wife Giulia (Mariangela Melato) and kids are stolen away by the domineering, fascist madman Cesare (Eli Wallach).
