The story of a marriage over time, based on a play by Jan de Hartog. Maria Schell and O. W. Fischer play an aristocratic Austrian couple who meet during the imperial era and experience the first five decades of the 20th century together: temptations and transgressions, world wars, economic crisis, the death of their son in the war. They experience good times and bad times and always remain cheerful, just as the Ferris wheel in Vienna's Prater continues to turn.