Set at the end of the XIX-th century. Madame Dulska is the sole and absolute ruler of her house in Cracow. She is ruthless, greedy and oversensitive of the reputation of her family. To protect his son from temptations she overlooks the affair he is having with the maid. Young Dulski first wants to marry the girl, but then yields to his mother demands and turns his interest to a cousin. Everything returns to normal: his father has his habitaul visits to a brothel, his son to a cabaret and Madame Dulska safeguards her reign.
The suffocating conditions in a bourgeois family were depicted in several films in the second half of the 1950s - this one is one of the lesser known, although it achieves great emotional impact, free from the first ideological pressures. The title character, the owner of the tenement house Mrs. Dulská, controls her relatives and tenants with a firm and despotic hand. To achieve her goals, she masterfully combines tears, blackmail and insidious intrigues, or does not hesitate to abuse the trusting and handsome maid Hanka when she wants her son not to fool around. Everything suddenly turns around when Hank gets pregnant... But the appearance of a good reputation is more important to her than anything.
