Directing
Christmas at an old rectory in the countryside – it's Christmas! And the three student brothers, "Gamle", "Corpus Juris" and Nicolai, are delighted to receive an invitation to spend Christmas with the priest in Nøddebo. The fact that there are also a couple of young daughters in the rectory naturally makes it all even more enjoyable. It's the first time Nicolai has gone along, so he knows nothing about his older brothers' infatuation with the two girls and falls head over heels for them, assuming that they can't handle his charm either. Things don't quite go his way now, because he finds himself pursued everywhere by the anything but pretty Maldrubine, whose warmest interest is the pleasures of the table.
In Fiolgade in Helsingør, in a cozy, old farm, commercial gardener Johansen, who became a widower early, lives with his only child, his daughter Mette, who is her father's everything, just as her young friends and acquaintances consider "gardener father" a fatherly friend. The six young people around Johansen follow each other through thick and thin, they go to dances together, become students together, get engaged together, even on the same day and on the same bench.
Manufacturer Mads Juehl, who together with his partner Møller owns the pram factory "Fortuna", is a man with an appreciation for life's many small pleasures. Despite the fact that the company's foundations are gradually becoming unstable, he does not deny himself large personal expenses, and Møller is keen to sell his share in the company. However, his friendly feelings for Juehl keep him tied to the company, and the young clerk, Victor Pethersen, believes that the company now needs to undergo a rejuvenation process.
The action begins one early summer morning in a hostel, where we see, among others, two young girls, a law student, Ruth, and a small office lady, Ilse. From their conversation, we understand that Ilse has a very bourgeois outlook on life. By chance, these two girls come across one of Ruth's fellow students, Pontus Berthelsen, who is spending the summer holidays in a fisherman's cabin. Ilse, who has little world experience, quickly takes an interest in Pontus, who possesses a lot of innate charm. Pontus does his best to conquer Ilse, but her bourgeois attitude means - at first - that she does not fall for his rather deft approaches.
On the indebted estate, Gyldenstrup, lives a spoiled and selfish lady, Mrs. Selstrup, with her two spoiled and selfish children, Ellen and Joachim. Her husband has recently died, and the widow completely forgets her grief when lawyer Hansen confides in her that they are in fact very poor. Spoiled and selfish as she is, it seems to her like a disaster that she and her two hopeful offspring may end up living in poorer conditions.
Paul a young, newlywed writer returns home from abroad with his sweet, young wife, Anna, whom he has met in the South of France. After their honeymoon Poul is looking forward to start his new job as a screenwriter.
The action takes place in the bleak, overcrowded, and for many too small apartments in one of Copenhagen's bridge districts, where there are both good citizens, but also people who live a shadowy existence. Up in the attic, Mathilde lives alone with her little daughter Vibeke. She is the result of a coincidence, as is so often the case when a young girl from the provinces comes to the Capital. Mathilde comes from Vordingborg, she went to the city to look for work. At the boarding house where she stayed, she made a friend Ellen, a rather frivolous and indifferent young girl.
In a train on its way through the bombed out Germany are a bunch of happy American soldiers. They are going to Copenhagen for some R&R. One of them is John Petersen, a lieutenant in the American army and another is his friend Bill. They are talking about how much they are looking forward to a rest in Denmark and John Petersen who is of Danish descent talks about his native Copenhagen.
Although Danish-American George Steffenson comes from poor circumstances, he has built a large financial empire, where the money rolls in. But the busy life is wearing on George, and when no medicine helps, he goes to Denmark on vacation, where no one knows him and he may find the true values of life. But it is no easy matter to turn your back on the empire, while sneaky backers are making insidious plans.
A husband is tempted to stray, gives in, and then struggles with himself and his conscience. The children are weighed in the balance, and in the end they are what make him stay in the marriage, even though he must then forsake the woman who for a time sweetened his life outside the confines of home.
