Manoranjan is perhaps the only Hindi movie where prostitution was presented as a 'fun' activity without moralising and the lead actress sleeps with men other than the hero and is not an issue.

Havaldar Ratan is a rookie at the local police station, and is assigned duty on foot patrol on Manoranjan Street, a notorious red-light area, on the very first day of his job.

He strikes up a conversation with a good-looking young woman named Nisha, and tells her that there is a possible violation of Suppression of Immoral Trafficking Act taking place on this street.

He does not want her to sell her body, and so he decides to work at night, and during the day he takes on the guise of a rich Nawab and spends time with her.

In a 2008 interview with the BBC, Shammi Kapoor revealed that he had planned to star in Irma La Douce since the early 1960s when he first saw it in a theatre in London.