Einar Rosenbaum

Danish noir crime drama with a poetic nerve. Two boys, Kristinus and Jakob (Rode and Neergaard) experienced a loveless and abusive childhood. Now as grown-ups, they are acting outside the law.

The heavy prison door in Vridsløse opens, and freedom beckons once again to counterfeiter P. Krone-Strøm. He has served an eight-year sentence, but believes it was a miscarriage of justice. He was one of the many who could not find employment during the crisis years of the 1930s in Denmark. Now he is once again in contact with the world outside the prison walls, but conditions have changed completely during the years he has spent in isolation. Now it is not money that is lacking in society, but labor and goods.

The estate Hjortholm is rescued from bankruptcy, as the pleasant doctor Christian Riis fetches the young engineer Erik Kongsted to the estate.

As children, Fritz and Adolphe are sold to a traveling showman, who trains them to become circus artists. Together with the two girls Louise and Aimée, they perform to audiences night after night while being subjected to a harsh training regimen and daily beatings. As the four friends grow up to become young adults, their master dies, and they begin to perform to an enthusiastic audience as The Four Devils. Countess Taube, who regularly watches their performances, falls in love with Fritz. Despite the budding love between him and Aimée, Fritz embarks on a relationship with the Countess, causing Aimée to devise a fatal revenge plan. (stumfilm.dk)

On his journey around the country, Volle has reached Copenhagen with his skarperbør. Volle is an old vagabond who loves his freedom everywhere in the world. His work provides him with just enough for the day and the road, and now and then a shot of schnapps as a bonus, and he does not demand more from life. A coincidence or one of the whims of fate if you will, makes Volle the foster father of 11-year-old Peter, son of the young widow Grete Jensen. Grete is in love with the young removal man Max Jørgensen and he with her. Peter happens to witness Max kissing his mother, he feels betrayed and runs away from home without a word. On the road he meets Volle and tells him a little lie that he has run away from guardianship...