Acting
The young farmer Hinnerk has managed to make something of his estate thanks to the help of his servant Hannes; only his household budget is a mess. One day, Hinnerk notices a pretty young girl at the rail station and immediately recognizes that it’s his childhood friend, Ilske Roehling. But when he makes a play for her, she tells him to take a long walk off a very short pier. At a dance party at the Bakenhus Inn, he sees her again and manages to get into a fight with the innkeeper. Worse still, he kidnaps Ilske in his car; takes her to his farm; and tries to force her to consent to marriage.
Lothar von PĂĽtz and Roswitha von Krakow fall in love and only then discover that their fathers are bitter enemies. When Lothar's father dies, a close friend of his father's, Baron Maximilian von Hanckel, takes the boy under his wing and tries to make peace between the families. He visits Roswitha's father, who begins to hope that he can marry his daughter to the older, but wealthy, baron, who is still a bachelor. When an argument breaks out between Lothar and Roswitha, she agrees to marry Maximilian. It is only at the pre-wedding party that Roswitha and Lothar have a real conversation. Maximilian overhears everything, releases Roswitha from her vows, and brings the two young people together.
Xanten am Rhein, 1870/1871. Roffer Rottwinkel has two sons. His favorite is Mathias, whom he prefers to Lonius, a quiet and introspective man. Lonius, for his part, is shyly revering Christine ... and his brother's in love with her, too. For this reason, the father sends Lonius away, to fight in the Franco-Prussian War, which turns the introverted boy into a brave and strong man. Highly decorated, he returns home. In the meantime, his brother Mathias and Christine are unhappily married. Mathias is slipping more and more and finally becomes a con man. As Lonius is still very much in love with Christine, he wishes to save his father's business from ruin and rebels against his brother, who now goes to extremes.
The Termoehlens belong to the old farming class in Flanders. Their estate does well and their flax is the best far and wide. And as is the custom, old Termoehlen is like a ruler over his family, the servants and the maidens. Even his son Ludwig, who has just returned from agricultural school with all his ideas on how to improve the farm, doesn’t stand a chance. When Ludwig falls in love with the maiden Rieneke – known as Schellebelle – his father become a despotic enemy.
In Vienna, during the 1848 Revolution, opera singer Antonia Corvelli marries Detlev von Blossin, a rich landowner. But, as she refuses to give up her career, her infuriated husband returns to Pomerania without her. After falling into the clutches of the cruel and wicked count Stefan Oginski, whose lover she unfortunately becomes, Antonia has no other choice but to pass for dead in order to escape him. She then returns to Italy where she joins small theater companies under various aliases. Until one day she is overtaken by her fate...
The day before chemist Dr. Hans Wynhold leaves for a six months business trip to Africa, he meets chemistry student Christa Weiden. They spend the evening together in St. Pauli and fall in love. She doesn't tell him that she'll start the next day at the chemistry laboratory he works at too, because he says he doesn't like women in "men's jobs". Only after his departure the next day Christa learns about Hans' reputation as a Don Juan. In fear that she'll lose him to another woman, she follows him... and starts a series of complications.
When a wife reads a love letter addressed to her husband, written by an unknown female, all hell breaks lose.
Based on an 1884 novel by Julius Stinde, it is a family chronicle set in late nineteenth century Berlin.
A continuation of the film "Familie Buchholz": To Wilhelmine Buchholz, the concept of a marriage based on love is somewhat scary, although she hears again and again that this is the "modern" method to a happy marriage. Her daughter Betti seems to agree, as she shows no interest in her middle class companions; she only loves the painter Holle. To once again restore family harmony, Mr. Buchholz sends his wife and daughters to Helgoland. But Wilhelmine has to return early to Berlin to look after things while Betti and Holle continue onward. On Helgoland, they secretly marry.
Whodunit centered around a hostel.
