| Director | Walter Lang |
|---|---|
| Budget | $5 million |
| Box office | $4.2 million |
In the Montmartre district of Paris, a dance known as the can-can, considered lewd, is performed nightly at the Bal du Paradis, a cabaret where Simone Pistache is both a dancer and the proprietor. On a night when her lawyer and lover, François Durnais, brings his good friend, chief magistrate Paul Barrière, to the café, a raid is staged by police. Claudine and the other dancers are placed under arrest and brought before the court.
Paul wishes the charges to be dismissed, but his younger colleague, Philippe Forrestier, believes the laws against public indecency should be enforced. Visiting the café and assuming another identity to gain evidence, Philippe becomes acquainted with Simone and almost succeeds in tricking her into a bet to provide a list of policemen who she has bought off. As Simone is in the process of opening her safe to take out the list, she is warned by Claudine that Philippe is the judge who presided over her recent case. Though unable to obtain the evidence he was hoping to get, charmed by Simone, Philippe develops a romantic interest in her.
Despite his attraction to Simone, Philippe again orders a raid on the café, and Simone is arrested. François attempts to blackmail Philippe with a compromising photograph, taken out of context on Philippe's visit to Simone's boudoir, to force him to drop the charges. However, Philippe had already decided to drop the case. Philippe then shocks Simone by proposing marriage to her. When François comes to visit her, she warns him that she will accept the proposal if he does not marry her himself, but he refuses the notion of ever marrying. Meanwhile, Paul tries to dissuade Philippe from the marriage, believing such an arrangement would end his career, but Philippe ignores his advice. Conspiring to sabotage the engagement, Paul arranges a party for the couple aboard a riverboat, during which François gets Simone drunk and encourages her to perform a bawdy routine in front of the upper-class guests. Humiliated at the guests’ reaction to her performance, Simone jumps off the boat and refuses to see Philippe again, writing to him that she cannot in good conscience become his bride.
Simone obtains a loan from François to stage a ball, insisting he accept the deed to the café as collateral. On the night of the ball, Simone presents an elaborate Garden of Eden Ballet, reminding the audience that sin was not born in Montmartre, though it may have been perfected there. Simone gets her revenge by then presenting a can-can, arranging for the police to raid the café and arrest François, now the legal proprietor. At the ensuing trial, Simone is called to testify but does not have the heart to give evidence against François. As the case is to be dismissed for lack of evidence, the president of a local moral league demands that action must be taken against the lewd performance. Paul suggests that the court view the dance firsthand to determine whether it is indecent. Simone, Claudine, and the dancers perform a can-can to the approval of all, who agree that it is not obscene. When the police nonetheless escort Simone to a police wagon, she is startled to find François inside, his having staged the false arrest. He points out that Simone called out for him when she found herself in danger. Angered by the ruse, Simone is shocked when he finally proposes; she nevertheless accepts.