Fredrik Egerman (Len Cariou) is very happy in his marriage to an 18-year-old virgin, Anne (Lesley-Anne Down). However, Anne has nervously protected her virginity for the whole eleven months of marriage, and being a bit restless, Fredrik goes to see an old flame, the famous actress, Desirée Armfeldt (Elizabeth Taylor). Desirée, who is getting tired of her life, is thinking of settling down, and sets her sights on Fredrik, despite his marriage, and her own married lover Count Carl-Magnus Mittelheim (Laurence Guittard). She gets her mother to invite the Egermans to her country estate for the weekend. But when Carl-Magnus and his wife, Charlotte (Diana Rigg), appear, too, things begin to get farcical, and the night must smile for the third time before all the lovers are united.
A criminologist narrates the tale of the newly engaged couple Brad Majors and Janet Weiss who find themselves lost and with a flat tire on a cold and rainy late November evening. Seeking a telephone, the couple walk to a nearby castle where they discover a group of strange and outlandish people who are holding an Annual Transylvanian Convention. They are soon swept into the world of Dr. Frank N. Furter, a self-proclaimed "sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania". The ensemble of convention attendees also includes servants Riff Raff, his sister Magenta, and a groupie named Columbia.
The film opens in a puppet theater, where three audience members—a military officer, a taxi driver, and a woman on a shopping trip—discover they are being depicted as marionette caricatures against a backdrop of newsreel footage from the 1920s through the 1950s. They find themselves trapped backstage amidst bizarre circumstances ... the puppet master is found dead above the stage, a gigantic plaster hand drops from the ceiling to the floor, and a deafening siren blares endlessly. The trio escapes from the theater to a beach, where the military officer locates the siren and kicks it, causing it to blow up.
At the reading of the will of young Patrick Dennis's (Kirby Furlong) father, a trustee, Mr. Babcock (John McGiver), reveals that Patrick is to be left in the care of his aunt, Mame Dennis (Lucille Ball), as well as his nanny, Agnes Gooch (Jane Connell). Taking a train to New York City (Main Title Including St. Bridget), Babcock and the boy arrive at Mame's home, where they walk into a wild party that Mame is giving for a holiday she herself created (It's Today). Patrick asks if he may slide down her banister, then reveals his true identity. Mame introduces the boy to her friends, including a renowned stage actress (and famous lush), Vera Charles (Beatrice Arthur).
Trinity and Brother Dave are a pair of devil-bats looking for a party to break up. They come across a party in Harlem. Although Trinity is eager, Dave warns him not to touch it. "When black folks throw a party, they don't play!" Trinity joins the party, already in progress, thrown by Miss Maybell in honor of her niece Earnestine's birthday.
The structure of the musical is, in large part, retained: a series of parables from the gospel of Matthew, interspersed with musical numbers. Many of the scenes take advantage of well-known sites around an empty, still New York City. John the Baptist gathers a diverse band of youthful disciples to follow and learn from the teachings of Jesus. These disciples then proceed to form a roving acting troupe that enacts Jesus's parables through the streets of New York. They often make references to vaudeville shtick.
The film is framed as a group of performers who travel to the desert to re-enact the Passion of Christ. The film begins with them arriving on a bus, assembling their props, and getting into costume. One of the group (Neeley) is surrounded by the others, puts on a white robe, and emerges as Jesus Christ.
In 1931 Berlin, young American Sally Bowles performs at the Kit Kat Klub. A new British arrival in the city, Brian Roberts, moves into the boarding house where Sally lives. A reserved academic and writer, Brian gives English lessons to earn a living while completing his doctorate. Sally tries seducing Brian and suspects he may be gay. Brian tells Sally that on three previous occasions he has tried to have physical relationships with women, all of which failed. They become friends, and Brian witnesses Sally's anarchic, bohemian life in the last days of the German Weimar Republic. Sally and Brian become lovers despite their earlier reservations; they conclude that his previous failures with women were because they were "the wrong three girls".
Cervantes and his manservant have been imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition, and a manuscript by Cervantes is seized by his fellow inmates, who subject him to a mock trial in order to determine whether the manuscript should be returned. Cervantes' defense is in the form of a play, in which Cervantes takes the role of Alonso Quijana, an old gentleman who has lost his mind and now believes that he should go forth as a knight-errant. Quijano renames himself Don Quixote de La Mancha, and sets out to find adventures with his "squire", Sancho Panza.
In 1905, Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman living in the Russian village of Anatevka, explains to the audience what keeps the Jews of Anatevka going is the balance they achieve through following their ancient traditions, comparing their precarious circumstance to a fiddler on a roof: trying to scratch out a pleasant tune, while not breaking their necks. The fiddler appears throughout the film as a metaphoric reminder of the Jews' ever-present fears and danger, and also as a symbol of the traditions Tevye is trying to hold on to as his world changes around him. While in town, Tevye meets Perchik, a radical Marxist from Kiev. Tevye invites Perchik to stay with him and his family, and as a deal, offers him food, in exchange for Perchik tutoring his daughters.
The plot exists on three levels.
First there is the frame story where in the south of England in the 1920s a struggling theatrical troupe is performing a musical about romantic intrigues at a finishing school for young women in the south of France. To ongoing backstage dramas and audiences smaller in number than the cast, two extra ingredients arrive: a famous Hollywood film producer turns up to see the show, and Polly, the mousy assistant stage manager, is forced to go on when the leading lady breaks a leg. As Polly struggles to keep her cool while acting opposite the male lead she secretly loves, the rest of the company backstab each other trying to impress the impresario.
At the behest of her ultra-conservative fiancé Warren, scatterbrained five-pack-a-day chain smoker and clairvoyant Daisy Gamble attends a class taught by psychiatrist Marc Chabot for help in kicking her habit. While undergoing hypnosis, it is discovered she is the reincarnation of Lady Melinda Winifred Waine Tentrees, a seductive 18th century coquette who was born the illegitimate daughter of a kitchen maid. She acquired the paternity records of the children housed in the orphanage where her mother worked and used the information to blackmail their wealthy fathers. She eventually married nobleman Robert Tentrees during the period of the English Regency, then was tried for espionage and treason after he abandoned her.
A New York City poet named Archy (Eddie Bracken) attempts suicide only to come back as a cockroach. As he learns how to write poetry by hopping on typewriter keys, he grows used to his new life and becomes infatuated with Mehitabel (Carol Channing), the singing alley cat. She instead goes out with the tomcat Big Bill (Alan Reed) When Big Bill dumps Mehitabel, Archy confronts her about her wild ways in general and her affinity for bad boy tomcats in particular. She momentarily agrees; however, self-appointed theatre maestro cat Tyrone T. Tattersall (John Carradine) promises to make her a star and becomes her next lover. Archy attempts and fails suicide again. In the theatre, Mehitabel holds up her end of the deal in getting food for Tyrone, but he kicks her off the stage. Archy and Big Bill watch her, and Mehitabel gets back together with Big Bill. Back to his typewriter, Archy channels his frustration in calling the other insects and spiders to revolution. He immediately drops the scheme when he hears the news that Mehitabel has kittens, and Big Bill has left the scene again.It's a rainy evening, and Archy points out to Mehitabel, that her kittens, who are inside a cover less trashcan, are floating away from her, and the two of them rescue the kittens, however, a moody Mehetabel, chases Archy away for interfering with her private business. Archy persuades Mehitabel to give up her life as an alley cat and support the kittens with a "job" as a house cat.
Charity Hope Valentine (Shirley MacLaine) works as a taxi dancer along with her friends, Nickie (Chita Rivera) and Helene (Paula Kelly). She longs for love, but has bad luck with men, being robbed and pushed off a bridge in Central Park by one ex-boyfriend. She has another humiliating encounter with Vittorio Vitale (Ricardo Montalban), a movie star.