Carmela is a young aristocrat who refuses an arranged marriage and is sent to a convent. Her arrival intensifies the power struggle between the decadent nun Elizabeth, whose influential family maintain her debauched sapphic lifestyle inside the cloister, and the stern but evil Mother Superior, as both women are smitten by Carmela's beauty. Often imitated but never equaled, this elegant film denotes both the origin of Nunsploitation cinema and its artistic peak.