New York, somewhere in Manhattan. The city is pulsating in the heat as Nat Ackermann, a successful garment manufacturer, makes himself comfortable for the evening. While he reads the paper suddenly an attractive but quite confused woman falls right through his window into his living room. Of course he doesn’t believe her when she tells him that she is the personification of Death. He is feeling fit as a fiddle, has just completed a merger with a famous company and isn’t ready to leave. The lady starts to doubt whether she did everything right. Maybe she mixed up addresses, because this is her first commission? Nat, who is realising the seriousness of the situation, tries to engage the personification of Death in conversation to try to trick the lady by using a little cunning. He persuades her to play Gin Rummy.
Death, stressed out and tired of Nat’s resistance, agrees: if Death wins, Nat will follow her. If Nat wins, he will get one more day to live. Night sets in and with it the game between life and Death starts. While the personification of Death is concentrating on her cards, Nat tries to find out more about dying and the hereafter. He constantly digs deeper and asks a lot of questions so that Death gets nervous and is thoroughly beaten. This failure in her first job saps her selfconfidence. Certain of his victory, Nat throws Death out of his home and suspects that he will cope with Death more easily in the future. (Christian Jost)