On the
French Riviera, wealthy American businessman Michael Brandon wants to buy
pajamas, but just the tops. When the store refuses to sell the pajamas without the pants, an attractive woman named Nicole offers to buy the bottoms. As the two engage in a
flirtatious conversation about Michael's insomnia, Nicole recommends that he spell "
Czechoslovakia" backwards when he goes to bed to help him fall asleep. Michael then tries to figure out if the pajama bottoms are for a family member or lover. At his hotel room, Michael's insomnia persists, so the managers offer him a suite on a higher floor, further away from the sounds of the sea. The suite is still occupied by the penniless Marquis de Loiselle, who owes 60,000
francs in unpaid hotel bills. The marquis attempts to make a business proposition to Michael, who refuses. However, when Michael recognizes the marquis' pajama bottoms, he realizes that Nicole is his daughter and, as a gesture of good will, buys a bathtub from him for 60,000 francs that was supposedly once owned by King
Louis XIV. Michael later proposes to Nicole, but she refuses. After he sends her an apology note and an invitation to dinner, they eventually fall in love. At the engagement party, Nicole is horrified to learn that Michael has been married seven times previously. She calls off the wedding, much to her father's dismay. Michael explains that he gives each of his wives a
prenuptial agreement guaranteeing $50,000 a year for life if they should divorce. Nicole demands twice that amount, and Michael assents. During the couple's honeymoon in Czechoslovakia and later at their home in Paris, Nicole keeps her discontented husband at arm's length while they live in separate rooms. He assumes that she is hoping to obtain a divorce, but this only strengthens his natural tenacity and his determination not to grant her one. It is implied that what she actually wants is to keep him interested by frustrating him so that he will not grow tired of her as he did with the previous seven wives. After reading
Shakespeare's
The Taming of the Shrew, Michael tries to follow
Petruchio's example by "taming" his wife, but Nicole proves too strong for him, slapping him back when he slaps her and biting him (then tenderly treating him with
iodine) when he spanks her. Nicole writes anonymous letters to Michael claiming that she has a lover, but Monsieur Pepinard, a private detective hired by Michael, assures him that the claim is false. Nicole then blackmails Pepinard into finding her a fake lover, a boxer named Kid Mulligan, so that Michael can catch her alone with him and get knocked unconscious. Complications ensue when her friend Count Albert De Regnier chooses the wrong time to return a purse that she had left behind and is mistaken for her husband by Kid Mulligan, and gets knocked out. Michael assumes that Albert is her lover and finally grants her a divorce. Michael has a nervous breakdown and commits himself to a sanitarium. Nicole tries to visit him but is barred from doing so. Michael is placed in a
straitjacket after spotting Marquis de Loiselle, who has arranged for Nicole to enter by buying the sanitarium with their new wealth. Nicole tells Michael that she fell in love with him at first sight, but she needed to break him of his habit of marrying so often. Now that she is financially independent, she explains that if they were to remarry, it would not be for his money. He frees himself from his straitjacket, walks toward her menacingly and kisses her. ==Cast==