Frederick Egerman (Len Cariou) is very happy in his marriage to a seventeen-year-old virgin, Anne (Lesley-Anne Down). Only she's been a virgin for the whole eleven months of the marriage, and being a bit restless, Fredrick goes to see an old flame, the famous actress Desiree Armfeldt (Dame Elizabeth Taylor). Desiree is getting tired of her life, and is thinking of settling down, and sets her sights on Fredrick, despite his marriage, and her own married lover Count Carl-Magnus Mittelheim (Laurence Guittard). She gets her mother to invite the Egermans to her country estate for the weekend. But when Carl-Magnus and his wife Charlotte (Dame Diana Rigg) appear, too, things begin to get farcical (Send in the Clowns), and the night must smile for the third time before all the lovers are united.