Hans, a fruit peddler, watches his unexceptional life disintegrate. Seduced and rejected to the point of a nervous breakdown, Hans drinks himself to death as he toasts his loved ones at the dinner table.
Fassbinder directs and stars as a gay lower-class carnival performer known as Fox the Talking Head, who strikes it rich by winning a lottery. Then he has an ill-fated romance with an elegant upperclass lover.