In the cutting room of the Barrandov film studios in Prague, an actor tells a story which indeed occurred in the mid-1920s. The owner of a Prague film distributor and astute swindler named Buday duped the village parish priest Zehour, manager of the local cinema, selling him a reportedly remarkable movie under the title The Destruction of Jerusalem, which in fact was a hodgepodge patched out of various old films. He managed to wheedle advance money from him, drinking it up with colleagues of his lot in the local pub. The next morning, he confessed his sin to the parish priest and comforted the enraged priest, telling him this victory was granted to him by Providence.