The story follows a rich, comfortable household thrown into escalating turmoil after a shabby vendor of sweet potatoes suffers a stroke in their drawing room. His presence alone isn't much of a catalyst (although it does spark plenty of interest and attention from the victim's greedy and envious tenement neighbors), but serves instead to counterpoint the absurd behavior of everyone around him. A large cast of sympathetic and eccentric characters bustles constantly in and out of each (oddly lit) scene, but despite all the frenzied activity and sharp dialogue the film presents a rather quaint moral: too much money spoils true love.