Skazki... skazki... skazki starogo Arbata

A chance meeting at an auction brings together Sawsan (Faten Hamama), a working class girl and Adel (Omar Sharif), heir to a vast fortune with several estates to his name. This leads to a whirlwind marriage. This development spells trouble for Adel's fair-weather bourgeois clique, who are used to manipulating him with their own financial interests at heart.

On new year's eve ten passengers missed the last ferry from Germany to Kopenhagen. The weirdo cook of a run-down and very small steamboat offers them a lift and leads them aboard: ten sympathetic little liars. They face all sorts of funny and tragic catastrophes while the crew entertains them with treats, music and dances. lost in-midst of the ocean, stuck in thick fog, with blocked machines and without navigation and electricity, in brief: aware of their hopeless situation they finally confess to each other their life's lies, illusions and false hopes.

Serving your fellow man is about as noble a task as there is in this world. At least that's what Jay and Atom tell each other as they toil away through rain and sleet and dark of night, all the while falling short of their own dreams and desires. Does the future hold a New York Times Bestseller for Jay? Some slutty groupies waiting backstage at Madison Square Garden for Atom? Anything is possible, but until then, they must serve the elitist upper crust who pass judgement, and look down their noses at them simply because they wear the noblest uniform of all. The Red, White and Blue of the United States Postman. It's time somebody stood up for the little guy. Will alcohol and anger save the day? Probably not...

The Grand Duchess Marie Louise is the beautiful young ruler of Molvania. She is a fun-loving girl who secretly hopes that the revolutionaries who threaten to take over her country are able to do so, as that will free her to go to America to be with the soldier friends she met during the Great War.

Ethan Traum: a frowzy, post-teen burn-out, drifting aimlessly through life with no purpose or direction, living out the same routine day after day, suffers from contradictory sleeping conditions that hinder him from obtaining a regular sleeping pattern. His bland, empty existence is lived out in stark contrast to his bright, vibrant imagination that manifests it's self completely in his dream life, which he'll go to extreme measures to try and escape to on a regular basis...and maybe even permanently.

Having been sent away to study in France when he was only 10, 30 years later Patrick is a renowned historian.