The Russian Revolution provides the backdrop for Paramount's The World and the Flesh. Marked for death by the Bolsheviks, a group of incognito aristocrats try to escape Russia by boxcar. The story focuses on one of these refuges, Maria Yasaka (Miriam Hopkins), the mistress of Grand Duke Dmitri (Alan Mowbray). Arriving in a French seacoast village, the little party is about to sail to England when the town is taken over by Russian sea captain Kylenko (George Bancroft). To save her travelling companions from arrest and execution, Maria pulls a Boule de Suif and sleeps with Kylenko -- only to fall in love with him. There's suspense aplenty in the final scenes of World and the Flesh, when it appears that everyone, heroine included, is doomed to face a firing squad.