A troupe of young women on post-apocalyptic earth are lead around by a mistress born before the war, eventually stumbling into the company of a lonely old man.

About fifty years after an apocalyptic war, a war-surviving woman leads a group of eight younger women around southern Europe in search of men who might be able to help them bear children and repopulate the Earth. They survive by scavenging through the ruins of former cities, looking for tins of food and other supplies. They toy with burning the remains of a barrel of gasoline after filling the 5-gallons canisters that they carry with them on horseback. Exploration of abandoned cities can be fraught with unexpected dangers. One of the young women, Eva, is stranded on a rotten wooden beam after the upper story floor in a cathedral collapses under her weight. While crossing a deep valley with a shallow river, they encounter a cow which they shoot. While reveling in their luck at obtaining fresh meat, a distressed old man hurries to see what is going on. He is thrilled to find some other survivors as he has been alone for the past 12 years. The last person he was with was a nephew who died at age 16 from leukemia, a common cause of death from the radioactive fallout from the war. He invites the group to dine with him, serving meat, fresh milk and wine. He lavishes some male attention on the leader, who bashfully accepts a bouquet of flowers he has picked for her. For an after-dinner surprise, he brings out a gramophone that he winds up and plays a "Roll out the Barrel" polka record for them.—Garon Smith