A new chief of a "Culture House" is planning to hold a terribly boring New Year concert. A group of young amateur actors are doing their best to liven up the concert.

Karnavalnaya Noch was the first comedy made by the Russian director Eldar Ryazanov. Filled with music, dances and singing it featured Ludmila Gurchenko in her first role and the renowned stage and film actor Igor Ilyinsky as Ogurtsov, an old-fashioned bureaucrat-stand-in director of the Culture Palace where the team of young people is trying to put together a musical programme to celebrate the New Year's Eve.

Sergei Fillipov is particularly funny as a tipsy lecturer who is invited by Ogurtsov to read a lecture about life on Mars on the New Years Eve, and Yuri Belov is good as a shy electrician who is in love with Lena Krylova (Gurchenko) The film is a light "feeling good" viewing, it is ageless and can be watched over and over again.