Winnie is desperate and doesn't know what to do next. She is about to marry her lover Paul, who has returned from war captivity. Both want to emigrate to America short after marriage. But the young woman has an illegitimate one-and-a-half-year-old son, whom she has kept secret from her fiancé. The...
The young veterinarian Dr. Vlimmen settles in a small town on the North Sea coast. When he reports the conditions in the local slaughterhouse as cruelty to animals, he makes an enemy of the influential butcher van Heusden, who launches a smear campaign against him. Vlimmen is only supported by his...
While working as an accountant in his uncle's factory, talented young pianist Peter dreams of becoming a famous composer. When he shows his work to a producer, he manages to convince him to give him a chance. From time to time he gets bigger contracts that keep him more and more away from home and...
Bus driver Jonny wants to marry Grete, but she is jealous, and when he wrecks his bus, gets robbed by burglars and is implicated in an insurance fraud he decides to leave town and sign up on a ship as a sailor.
Before the First World War, Dr. Hans Stockmann had a practice in a small town. His powerhungry brother is the mayor of Bad Trimburg, which has developed into a respectable resort. Dr. Stockmann is called in to become the town’s chief physician. He considers the sanitary conditions to be...
A young actress, dismissed as untalented by a famous and admired mime, takes revenge for the insult by playing so many roles for him in his house - from maid to abused wife and tender mother to vamp - that in the end he discovers not only her talent but also his love for her.
Relations between middle-aged businessman Arthur Dahlberg and his young wife Anja are not at their best. So it occurred to them to leave their Hamburg home and go on vacation to the Côte d'Azur to revitalize their relationship. But Arthur Dahlberg, even on vacation, is obsessed with running his...
Ernestine Stengel works as a housekeeper in a small northern German hotel that guests like to visit, especially at weekends. She is still single and, given her age, no longer quite "fresh", or as they say, a "late girl". At least that is what her regular guest, Dr. Hans Ahlgrimm, calls her. One...
In a small town in northern Germany at the turn of the century: The wealthy mayor's daughter Felizitas marries the much older owner of a trading house because her childhood friend and lover, an impoverished shipowner's son who has broken off his painting studies, withdraws from her. Although she...