Six months after he lost his wife and two sons in a plane crash, Professor David Zimmer sits in an alcoholic stupor in front of the television - and suddenly sees an excerpt from an old silent film with comedian Hector Mann, who disappeared in 1929 while taking off his stellar career. Shaking off his stupor, Zimmer travels around America and Europe to look at all the rare copies of Mann's short films that have survived, and writes a biography of this half-forgotten comedian. Soon he receives a letter from which it follows that Hector Mann seems to be still alive and asks him to come. What if this is not a prank?..