A poignant comedy about a mute who befriends Nicole, the little daughter of a prostitute. Gleason shows his considerable talents as an actor without uttering a sound as he plays the bumbling, kind-hearted janitor, Gigot. Gleason wrote the original story and music for this film.

Gigot is a huge, mild-mannered mute who works as a janitor in a working-class Paris boardinghouse. Though adored by animals and children, he is badly treated by his employer and is constantly being made the butt of practical jokes. His favorite pastime is attending funerals, where he has a sense of belonging to a group. One evening Gigot finds a prostitute, Colette, and her little daughter, Nicole, and takes them to his squalid basement home. As his affection for the child grows, the mother threatens to leave; and Gigot is forced to steal money from the local bakery in order to persuade her to remain. After spending a night with her boyfriend, Colette returns home one morning and discovers that Gigot and Nicole have vanished. Assuming the mute has kidnaped the child, she arouses the neighbors; but actually Gigot is entertaining Nicole in a subcellar of his basement. The ceiling collapses, the child is injured, and Gigot carries her through the back streets to a church, where the priest summons a doctor. On the way back to his apartment to fetch a phonograph for Nicole, he is spotted by a crowd of people; they give chase, and he falls into the Seine. Seeing his cap floating in the river, the crowd believes he has drowned. Filled with remorse, they give him a lavish funeral, where the most delighted of the mourners is Gigot, who is watching from a cemetery tree. Some of the mourners spot him, however, and the chase begins again.