Fashion photographer and unrepentant lover-of-women Michael (Peter O'Toole) lives in Paris, home of the world's most beautiful women. When it becomes clear that more or less every woman who sees him in certain lighting conditions will fall instantly in love with him Michael decides to get professional help. However what he gets from the group analysis sessions conducted by insane psychoanalyst Dr Fassbender (Peter Sellers) do little to prepare him for commitment to his long-suffering fiancée Carol (Romy Schneider). Patient and doctor end up at Chateau Chantal, a hotel for those conducting subtle bourgeois 'affaires', pursued by a mob of women and angry cuckolded husbands for a dramatic denouement...