電影以美國(guó)歷史上最大龐氏騙局（金字塔騙局、非法集資）為背景，講述了金融巨鱷、前納斯達(dá)克主席麥道夫如何玩了一把龐氏騙局。

　　Released in France as La Kermesse Heroique, Carnival in Flanders is set during the long-ago war between the Dutch and Spanish. A tiny village in Flanders is invaded by Spanish troops. The townsfolk have heard of Spanish cruelties in other towns, and decide to deflect the vanquishers by playing dead. This isn't terribly effective (you have to take a breath once in a while), so the wife of the burgomaster tries to soften up the invaders with a lavish carnival. So successful is this venture that the Spaniards allow the village to escape being decimated, or even taxed. An award-winner many times over, Carnival in Flanders was banned in Germany; evidently, Goebbels caught on that director Jacques Feyder and scenarists Bernard Zimmer and Charles Spaak were drawing deliberate parallels between the Spanish and the then-burgeoning Nazis.

當(dāng)奧羅拉·蒂加登工作的餐館老板突然被殺時(shí)，她的新男友成為主要嫌疑人。