Dans le sud de la France, le cadavre d'une touriste américaine, Candice Strasberg, est découvert en pleine garrigue. L'état de décomposition du corps rend difficile l'autopsie et les mauvaises conditions météorologiques ont effacé les empreintes sur le terrain. À partir du journal intime de la victime, la police tente de reconstituer son parcours...
NATO Officer Andrea Rossi-Colombotti (Mastroianni) is a ladies man with an unusual libido: he can only seduce women in situations where his life is in danger. The film begins with him breaking into a Corsican girlfriends house; the girl, armed and voluptuous, believes Andrea a criminal and nearly shoots him before being seduced, but she later ends their relationship in the light of such an incident. Later, while spending an afternoon with an Asian air stewardess, he tries to achieve arousal by making up a situation about a dying relative, but the stewardess learns the sham and the liaison ends disastrously.
American film producer Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) hires respected Austrian director Fritz Lang (playing himself) to direct a film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey. Dissatisfied with Lang's treatment of the material as an art film, Prokosch hires Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli), a novelist and playwright, to rework the script. The conflict between artistic expression and commercial opportunity parallels Paul's sudden estrangement from his wife Camille Javal (Brigitte Bardot), who becomes aloof with Paul after he leaves her alone with Prokosch, a millionaire playboy.