The film is based on a once-popular French comic novel Mon oncle Benjamin [fr] by Claude Tillier (1842).

[2] The 1969 film Don't Grieve,[3] directed by the Georgian Georgi Daneliya, is also based on Tillier's novel as was Francis Bousquet's 1942 comic opera Mon oncle Benjamin.

Benjamin (Jacques Brel) is a country doctor in love with the beautiful innkeeper's daughter, Manette (Claude Jade), but she refuses his advances until he produces a marriage contract.

After suffering a humiliating practical joke and condemned to prison, Benjamin escapes with Manette, who realizes she prefers happiness to a marriage contract after all.

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