Acting
Young Jonas Tofte is a waiter in the theater café, but he is more than that; he is also a poet and has written a comedy that is about to premiere. With this, both he and his sweet little wife, Else, hope to be out of all the difficulties they have come to know so well. Once the premiere is over, all the bills will be paid, and Jonas can stop serving. But many difficulties still lie ahead for Jonas before the premiere is over.
Before tipsters and electronic lottery games, you could turn to centrally located citizens who sold lottery tickets. One such person is Peter Blomberg, and with him, butcher Lund and his wife won a quarter of a million Danish kroner! In 1936, that was so much money that you could throw it all around and radically change your lifestyle. And Mr. and Mrs. Lund do so in the most festive way... and Blomberg should also have a piece of the cake...
In the idyllic provincial town of Gammelkøbing lives Emanuel Thomsen, known as Thummelumsen. It is his great dream to buy the Møllegården, which was once owned by the family, and for 15 years he has been scrimping and saving to get by. In the meantime, he has been followed by several hopeful female glances, because even though Thummelumsen is no Adonis, he is full of energy. And when one day he wins 12,500 kroner in the lottery, everything seems to be going well. But then the bag is shaken once again...
A bunch of wagons are crossing the border. It's the Karla Circus, which, after a rough season in Germany, is gonna try its luck in Denmark. Mrs. Karla, the beloved and respected circus director, goes through passports and papers with the customs officers... everything's fine, so the circus caravan can keep going to the next town. One of the circus employees is caught harboring a vagrant in his wagon. But when it turns out that the vagrant is an excellent flute player, he becomes an asset to Circus Karla.
The priest on Snarø, Adam Valerius, is a widower for three years, and the young ladies in the parish are queuing up to become the next priest's wife. But when Adam's single housekeeper suddenly becomes pregnant, the small community gets talking, and soon the bishop is summoned. By a twist of fate, the Copenhagen actor Emil Flor, who is on his way to the island, is mistaken for the bishop, and he gets into the role and elegantly resolves the conflict. But then the real bishop appears...
Landowner Martin Kaas lives with his grandson Martin at Næsbygård. Martin is an avid horseman. One day, his horse loses a shoe, so Martin goes to see the village blacksmith Mortensen, where he meets the blacksmith's foster daughter Elise. The blacksmith is known to be an honest and religious man, but no one but Elise knows how brutal and cruel he really is. Elise discovers that her foster father, together with the estate's manager Hermansen, is involved in many shady deals that are not in the best interests of the estate. Martin, who often feels lonely, forms a warm friendship with Elise. One day, Martin disappears, and a letter left on his bed reveals that he has been kidnapped and that only a large ransom can bring the boy back.
When Møller Jakob Clausen of "Højmøllen" sits at his wife's deathbed, he makes her promise that if he marries again, he will choose a woman who will be good to their little son, Hans. And in motherly care for her little son, the dying wife mentions the forester's gentle and kind sister, Hanne, who will surely be able to become both a faithful wife for the miller and a good mother for Hans.
After a long and arduous life, where she is tyrannized by her husband, the nice old lady becomes a widow. And she inherits a fortune. Now she takes revenge and spends money - much to the outrage of the whole family. They desperately try to have her disenfranchised. The family's attempts to stop the old lady's play with the money give rise to lots of baroque and very comical situations. The laugh muscles are frequently appealed to - and the ending is very surprising...
We are in a small Heurigen-Café in Vienna. The young singer Fritz Hertzgruber meets a young Danish writer, Jesper Ellekilde, and the two young people become friends immediately. Fritz has been to Denmark as a "Viennese child" and is now an enthusiastic member of the Viennese children's own club. The following evening, the club's annual draw for a trip to Denmark takes place, and Fritz is the lucky one - albeit by detours. Fritz and Jesper are accompanied to Denmark, where Fritz is very much looking forward to the reunion with his foster parents, the composer Emilius Andersen and his wife. They were the sweetest people to their Viennese child, and their home stands in Fritz's memory as the epitome of idyll and harmony.
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.
Martin the vagabond is cheerful and musical like few others. Together with his new friend Anders, he sings his way to a meal and a place to sleep. During a performance, Anders meets the daughter of Bakkegaarden, whose mother has been a widow for a long time and may have a past with Martin. But not all the local farmers are equally fond of the two wandering charmers.
One day, a young man unexpectedly shows up in the small town, and word quickly spreads that he has inherited a fishing boat and a small house from his uncle. Martin Poulsen is not a fisherman, but he decides to become one. He finds a good helper, Mikkel, who has been fishing for many years, and his nephew, Anders, who has his eye on Marie from Møllegården. One day, Martin meets the oldest girl on the farm, Anna, and quickly falls in love with her. This, along with his interest in fishing, becomes a thorn in the side of the small community's largest cutter owner, who has until now been regarded as a minor king.
Niels Pind is a drunkard who is exploited by some of the town's residents. This comes to an end when his son, Jens, returns from America with a lot of money. Jens buys the local estate and starts extracting gravel from the ground. He quickly gains a bad reputation in the area because he only thinks about money. Niels Pind disowns his son. However, Jens changes as he falls more and more in love with Ingrid.
In the small idyllic town Randrup, lives on nature-loving and friendly thatcher Rasmus Thomsen (Oswald Helmuth). In addition to refurbish people's roofs, he runs a small "geschæft" that "The wise man". Son Ulf (Frits Helmuth), which reads the doctor's home on leave before the final exam in Copenhagen. Rasmus' big dream has always been that Ulf had to be "real doctor" and achieve what he always wanted so dearly. By thrift and income have gained through the many patients who seek Him from far and near, he has been able to afford his son's studies. His reputation as a wise man has knowledge of.
The small local train trundles laboriously into Torslev station. The stationmaster is standing on the platform wearing slippers, waiting for the train. When it stops, it turns out that there is only one passenger on board. A younger, strange-looking, elegantly dressed man steps onto the platform with a couple of suitcases with lots of nice brands from foreign countries. The man's name is Nelson. Many years ago he went abroad. Now he is returning home to see how things are in his hometown.
Ellekjær's future is on Ann-Marie's mind. She tries to get her adopted daughter, Grete, married to Erik von der Rude, but Grete loves the farmhand Jørgen. They decide to get married, after which Annemarie disowns Grete. However, Ann-Marie's other daughter, Elin, is in love with Erik. Erik's past in Copenhagen catches up with him, and Elin moves in with her sister. The film then goes through a series of complications before Elin and Erik can finally get married and Ann-Marie is reunited with her daughters.
The only daughter of an old landowner has died in Italy after leaving her family 15 years ago. Her son now returns home to Denmark. He threatens the landowner's nephew for his inheritance, prompting the nephew to devise several plans to discredit the boy in the eyes of his grandfather. The plans almost succeed, but thanks to help from the priest, among others, the story ends with a reconciliation between the grandson and his grandfather.
In a small street on the outskirts of town, there are two small shops next to each other: Nummesen's herbalist's shop and Mikkelsen's plumber's shop. Nummesen, the little quirky, friendly herbalist, loves to tease the choleric Mikkelsen. Mikkelsen wants to sell the shop, mostly because the economy is bad after his former Svend, Vilhelm, left it. Now Vilhelm is coming back, to the great joy of Mikkelsen's daughter, who is in love with Vilhelm.
A woman is found strangled in her shop. Shortly after, another murder is committed. Perhaps the most terrifying is that the both girls' name is Sonja. The police is convinced it's the same killer and at each scene is heard a woman singing the same song. A song which is soon dubbed the 'murder melody.'
Due to his weakness for women and gambling, the old landowner Vilhelm Stone has ruined his marriage and lost his son and friends. But when he dies, his son Niels returns home from Australia to take over the estate. However, it is not that simple. Lawyers drag out the inheritance case, and initially Niels only inherits the racehorse Ibrahim. Niels is determined to win the big race of the year at the racetrack, and it is here that Poul Reichhardt sings the famous schlager Ibrahim to his horse. In the battle to get the family estate, Niels gets incredible help from his faithful companion, the farmhand Nicholajsen.