As the cold sound of money echoes through the marble halls of the Paris Stock Exchange, the massive gears begin to turn. Speculations born of a thousand and one ambitions and the cutthroat world of traders lay bare the decay of the first quarter of the twentieth century. In this black-and-white drama, director Marcel L’Herbier documents with detached objectivity how financial capital grinds down the human spirit. Nicolas Saccard, at the center of capital and ambition, devises a risky game as he struggles to stay ahead of his rivals. This cycle, into which the aviator Jacques Hamelin is also drawn, reveals the loneliness behind great fortunes and the destruction born of greed.