Max de Mirecourt (Albert Préjean), a frustrated writer, goes to Tunisia in search of inspiration for his next novel. He meets a local girl named Alwina (Baker) whose personality intrigues Max so greatly that he invents a character based on her for his newest (and 'most exciting') novel. His relation with Alwina serves a dual purpose in that it also angers (or at least highly annoys) his wife Lucie (Germaine Aussey) who has been flirting with the Maharajah of Datane (Jean Galland) back in Paris. Alwina is taken under Max's wing and taught the manners and social graces of a high society princess. She is then whisked away to Paris with Max and pretends to be Princess Tam Tam, from far away India. Lucie is only further enraged by all the attention that Alwina receives and, after her friend sees Alwina dance provocatively in a sailor's bar, calls upon her Maharajah to craft a plan which will destroy her husband's relation with "the princess." The Maharajah throws a grand party, inviting the upper crust of Parisian society. Alwina is unable to resist the exotic music, and promptly joins the large, staged dance number, embarrassing Max—until he realizes that the entire audience is on their feet, applauding Alwina. Lucie is furious. Lucie and Max forgive each other in the end and fall in love again. Alwina returns back to Tunisia after the frustrating realization that, as the Maharajah puts it, "Some windows face to the West, and the others to the East." This is a reference to the extreme orientalist tendencies of society Paris at this time.[original research?] Ultimately, however, the entire European affair is revealed to be little more than an enactment of Max's novel in progress. Alwina never does go to Europe, and the primary events of the film are simply a staging of how Max has imagined them. Alwina is given Max's Tunisian estate, and Max's new novel is a success. The title of his new work is "Civilisation." When asked about Alwina while back in Europe, Max states that she is "Better where she is," and the film closes with a scene of Alwina and Dar back in Tunisia, with a newborn child, and with farm animals now strewn about Max's mansion. In the final shot, a donkey eats the title page of "Civilisation" from off of Max's (now Alwina's) floor.

On February 4, 2010, Swann Galleries set an auction record for Svend Koppel’s poster for the film at $9,000. The image, Josephine Baker / Prinsesse Tam-Tam, from 1935, was later used by the United States Postal Service on a postage stamp.