Acting
In the year 1646, Denmark is at peace. Only recently have the last occupying troops left Jutland, leaving behind the sad traces of iron heels. The administration has partially collapsed, the kingdom is short of money, and what money there is is unevenly distributed. This is the unusual and sad background to this unpretentious account.
A gentle comedy offering the promise of easy social consensus. Harry (Helmuth) is a simple old-time shop porter offered a chance at self-realisation when he's bequeathed a sum by an unknown relative (via several levels of fiscal blood suckers). He decides to engage a butler to take good care of him for a time. This is a man of distinguished upper class service, but a generous nature which happily integrates with Harry's small but colourful world of drinking buddies and crackpot neighbourhood kids.
Charles and Peter have passed their law degree and are looking forward to wooing a few girls in the country. For that, they need a chaperone and persuade their fellow student Ditlev to play Charles's aunt from Brazil. Ditlev has a talent for acting and takes the role very seriously, but when Charles's real aunt turns up, things get complicated.
On the idyllic Birkø lives Christian a parish executive officer. He is a brave and honest man, happily married to Martha, and this couple has a son called Theo and he will once take over the farm.
Factory worker Otto Nielsen and his wife Helga live in a 2-room apartment in a sad Copenhagen suburbs district, where the S-trains still bumble by, but of course, such things can be used to. They have five children and it is often difficult to meet daily expenses. Nielsen has bought a building site outside the city, it is his dream to once again be able to exchange the narrow apartment with his own house.
Our bandit story takes place in the good old days, when strife, war, and lawlessness were the order of the day—a time quite unlike our own. In Rold Forest, the daring robber chief Justi roams, stealing from the rich to help the poor. His right-hand men are Reinald, who is more interested in the cash rewards, and the cunning minstrel Ole Hopsasa, whose greatest joy is to quench his ever-burning thirst and sing a cheerful song.
Peter arrives in Helsingør to marry Bitten. He is accompanied by Kanusti, who is to be his best man. However, upon arrival, his mother-in-law's dislike of Peter is immediately apparent. When Peter later finds out that Bitten wants them to live three houses away from her mother, Peter does not show up for the wedding. However, thanks to Kanusti's intervention, Bitten and Peter are reunited.
Three girls (around 20 years old) who have grown up in different parts of Denmark get a strange letter. It turns out they are sisters, and will inherit from their late mother, if the can stay together one month in the same house. They end up in a lot of (romantic) trouble, because of speculations of who their father(s) might be.
Tonnemann lives in one of the wooden sheds at the far end of Islands Brygge, close to Copenhagen's landfill site. But in 1928, he wants to leave this environment behind – to go where the air is fresh and life may offer both security and meaning. He is already on his way with his packed suitcase to sign on to a long-distance boat when a lovely girl gets in his way with her little red sports car.
A very respectable married couple, dentist Rudolf Thomsen and Helene, his sweet and quiet wife. He is deeply absorbed in his dental work and expects to be rewarded for his diligence with a prestigious position at a clinic in Amsterdam. Incidentally, he is quite fussy about his health and systematically avoids anything that might add color to his life.
A dangerous prison escaper, a young Jutland woman, and a bank clerk, who has just deprived his employer of some cash and is now headed abroad, meet on a lyntog (literally "lightning train") from Arhus to Copenhagen.
