It stars Jean-Pierre Cassel as Candide, Pierre Brasseur as Pangloss, Louis de Funès as the officer of the Gestapo, and Daliah Lavi as Cunégonde.
Set in the World War II-era, it follows the adventures of Candide, an orphaned Westphalian brought up in a baron's chalet.
When war breaks out in 1939, Candide is drafted and then captured by the Nazis, but escapes and joins the International Red Cross.
Candide's improbable adventures take him into a concentration camp to rescue his tutor, Pangloss; then he is off to South America (where he endures a series of revolutions), Borneo (where he is imprisoned by a primitive tribe), Moscow (where he accidentally foments a missile crisis between the Soviet Union and the United States), and New York (where he gets mixed up in a racial clash).
Finally, back in France, he retires to a country house with Cunégonde, Pangloss, and a mysterious lady who saved him from a firing squad, and settles down to write his memoirs.