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In a lively Italian town square, the curtain opens on a road show circus where a sad clown watches as a young maiden swoons over a man courting her with the lute.  Wishing to be her suitor as well, the clown disguises himself and plays the instrument for her, but her suitor soon unmasks the clown, to the delight of the audience.  The clown feigns heartbreak, but when show closes, he is visibly distraught over the female dancer’s interest in the tightrope walker.

Meanwhile, the performance continues on the stage with elaborate displays of acrobatics, juggling and balancing feats.  When the curtain opens again, dancers pluck instruments from the clown’s costume, revealing rings of bells on the his wrists, ankles and hat, make a melody as he frolics in dance.  The audience soon turns to the tightrope walker, who performs dangerous somersaults and flips high above them.  The clown watches as the female dancer gazes admiringly at the tightrope walker.  At the close of the circus, the clown, stricken with jealousy, ruefully walks through the excited crowd.

That night the clown watches as the tightrope walker, who is the dancer’s lover, and his beloved perform their intimate ballet, each joyously performing solos to entice each other’s passion.  As the tightrope walker carries the beloved away, she leaves behind her red cape, which the clown uses gingerly to dance with as a partner.  When the beloved returns and witnesses the clown’s folly, he cries in humiliation.  She tries to comfort the clown, but the tightrope walker returns, misconstrues her pity and flies into a rage, accepting none of her explanations.  Unable to comfort the distraught woman, the clown climbs the ladder to the tightrope and inches his way across the wire.  Frantic to save the clown, the beloved calls to the circus performers, who watch as the clown falls to the ground onto the red cape.  Grabbing the hand of the tightrope walker, the clown releases the beloved into his care, clutches the cape and dies.

At a lively party filled with guests gossiping, dancing and drinking, the hostess is flattering an artist, when her husband returns home.  Despite being jealous, the husband presents his wife with an anniversary present, a beautiful bracelet, but then leaves her to delight in the artist’s attentions.  At his studio, the artist is so enamored with his model that he hands her the same bracelet as a token of his affection.

Sometime later at the backstage door, several suitors anxiously tap in anticipation of their dates’ arrival.  Soon the model arrives wearing the bracelet.  Her suitor, the sharpie, jealously eyes it and later that evening it is in his possession when he visits a femme fatale at a nightclub and presents the bracelet to her.  On stage a crooner sings a ballad, causing an entire female audience to swoon at his feet except for the femme fatale, who calmly leads him off stage with her sexy swagger.

Later, the crooner is playing a tune on the piano when the club’s hat check girl notices the bracelet on his wrist.  After a jazzy dance duo ending in an embrace, she receives the token.  Afterward, she meets her lover, a Marine.  Seeing the bracelet, the Marine assumes she has been unfaithful, yanks it from her wrist and leaves for a bar.  Later the drunken Marine wanders through the streets where a girl on the stairs asks for a light and pulls the Marine into a sultry dance.  After receiving the bracelet from the Marine, the girl walks past a hotel, where the hostess’ husband spots it on her wrist.  The husband buys the bracelet from the girl and returns home, where his wife rushes to him, moved by his return.

One afternoon, while ambling about a foreign marketplace, Sinbad the Sailor buys up trinkets including a lamp and a book.  Later that night, he rubs the lamp in an attempt to shine it and a small boy genie rises from a cloud of smoke.  At first Sinbad believes the apparition is a ruse and tries to sneak away; however, when the genie charms a cobra with his flute, Sinbad finally realizes his luck.  He then rubs the lamp to request a matching sailor outfit for his young friend and the two playfully kick up their heels at their good fortune.  Enticed by the book’s elaborate illustrations of a magical land, Sinbad rubs the lamp again.  The two then shrink in size and climb into a page of hillsides covered in sparkling gems.  When Sinbad picks up a large diamond, a ferocious dragon suddenly captures him with her tail.  After the genie uses his flute to tame the creature, the dragon is transformed into a veiled seductress, who dances a duet with Sinbad.  While trying to pick up another gem, Sinbad is confronted by two knife-wielding guards and taken to their leader, a sultan who orders Sinbad’s death; however, the genie uses his flute to charm the guards into dancing with Sinbad instead.  Sinbad is soon smitten with one of the shyer maidens of the palace and whisks her away into a wind-swept meadow filled with swirling leaves and flowers.  The couple leaps through the air, skates on lily pads, swings on vines and then falls asleep.  Waking at the palace, Sinbad is surrounded by guards who throw dozens of knifes at the sailor’s feet, but Sinbad adeptly jumps from handle to handle, narrowly escaping their aim.  The guards then join Sinbad in a tap dance, but are still unwilling to let him go.  Sinbad quickens the tempo, spinning the guards so rapidly that they turn into bouncing balls that he kicks away.  The genie and girl then return and the three dance off into the meadow.