Acting
The film is an adaptation of the 1891 operetta Der Vogelhändler by composer Carl Zeller, with libretto by Moritz West and Ludwig Held, though it incorporates few of the original songs, using them mostly instrumentally or in the background. The plot follows Adam, a Tyrolean bird seller in 18th-century Rhineland, who hopes to marry his beloved Christl, a postmaster's daughter; to secure his future, she arranges for him to perform at court, but complications arise when she is mistakenly suspected of an affair with a philandering prince.
Rather coarse, pre-War comedy about a Markgraf -- Heinrich XXVI -- who bathes in the springs of the Ammendorf to strengthen his potency. The town and its springs are especially well known for the many couples with lots of children, who, for tax reasons, live there unmarried. The town smithy and bully provides his vitality to ensure the countess has an heir for the throne.
Prince Klemens von Metternich orders Friedrich Gentz, one of his aides, to keep the Duke of Reichstadt---Napoleon Francois Joseph Charles---son of Napoleon and heir to the French throne, from thinking about French politics. Gentz enlists the help of ballerina Fanny Elsser, all the rage in several European capitals, to keep the Duke distracted.
In 1887 in Munich, a rising artist paints a portrait of a dancer. The success of it during an exhibition leads to him being awarded a major commission in Rome, and he begins to move in high society. By the time he returns home he has almost forgotten about her.
Cheeky Jette is a typical Berlin girl. Together with her mother, she performs couplets in a Berlin suburb theatre every night. Then, a young Austrian baron, who is worshipping Jette, enables her to audition for Königstädtisches Theater. Although she at first fails with an aria from an opera, Jette wins over the hearts of the board members with her fresh style when she performs a cheeky couplet that was written by Barsch, the stage manager of the suburb theater.
Prague in the 1860s: Balduin is a popular, handsome student, the best fencer in town, in amicable rivalry with his friend Dahl for the affections of Lydia, the innkeeper's niece. While the students are celebrating Lydia's birthday, the opera singer Julia Stella arrives at the inn - and Balduin's life begins to unravel. He is immediately infatuated with the glamorous singer - but she is already kept by an admirer, the wealthy and foppish Baron Waldis. How can a poor student hope to compete? The mysterious Dr. Carpis, who also has ties to Julia and is jealous of the Baron, intervenes. But the price will be higher than Balduin can ever imagine. He risks his sanity and his life - perhaps his very soul - haunted by his own reflection.
After a detective is assaulted by thugs and placed in an asylum run by Professor Baum, he observes the professor's preoccupation with another patient, the criminal genius Dr. Mabuse the hypnotist. When Mabuse's notes are found to be connected with a rash of recent crimes, Commissioner Lohmann must determine how Mabuse is communicating with the criminals, despite conflicting reports on the doctor's whereabouts, and capture him for good.
As a young couple stops and rests in a small village inn, the man is abducted by Death and sequestered behind a huge doorless, windowless wall. The woman poisons herself in order to join him and is met by Death, who gives her three opportunities to prove that love is stronger than death, thereby freeing her beloved from his fate.
When Albers takes his drug-addicted opera star sister Gerda to a sanitarium, they both become targets of slimy dope peddler Peter Lorre, who fears that Gerda will blow the whistle on him. Lorre kidnaps the woman, leading Albers on a frantic chase.
The story of Hannele, an unhappy girl who is beaten by her stepfather and tries to commit suicide.
No description available.
The mastermind behind a ubiquitous spy operation learns of a dangerous romance between a Russian lady in his employ and a dashing agent from the government's secret service.
Country Dr. Robert Koch is desperate: a tuberculosis epidemic is decimating the children in his district and no one is able to do anything about it. Every fourth child is already sick and the parents must helplessly watch as their young ones die. Now Koch is undertaking to find the cause of the tuberculosis --- something he has already been working on for years --- which has been causing this plague of illness. His work is made more difficult by envy; for example, that of his teacher, who was wounded defending his honor. But his greatest obstacle is the famous Berliner scientist and Reichstag deputy, Privy Councilor Rudolf Virchow: He is extraordinarily skeptical of Koch's theory, that the cause for tuberculosis is a bacteria.
The opera singer Maddalena had been cast out by her family after they learned she was to bear the child of a banker, von Keller, who had seduced and abandoned her. Her return to her native city has her father warn her to remain away, because she is a threat to her family, and her sister Marie's wedding. However, von Keller threatens the reputation of her family with an underhanded banking scheme. He commits suicide, and Maddalena is reconciled with her family.
Three soldiers on very short home leave visit Berlin. One isn't from there and runs around with his guide book being perplexed by all the things that are different now. Another visits his wife and his baby. The third enters a romance due to a mistaken identity.
A young woman poses as a boy to ingratiate herself better with her strict aristocratic grandfather and to get him to better accept the new freer ways of the younger generation.
In a prologue and four acts (the prologue and the first act are lost so is necessary to describe what happens with title cards) the film depicts the terrible dream of Asmus wherein the devil joins the human world disguised as a tinker. He meets Frau Ane, Asmus' wife; Ane yearns to have a baby but in vain so the devil takes advantage of Frau Ane's motherly inner desire by making a deal with her but for his own purposes. As a result, the farmer's wife comes under the devil's spell and then seduces the local priest, giving the devil to chance to build his own church to replace the old church that has burned down.
Already a famous painter, Rembrandt van Rijn is commissioned to paint the Amsterdam Archers' Guild. But upon completion of the picture, the men of the guild feel duped, because they don't consider themselves flatteringly depicted in the painting. They therefore decline to pay for the work. During this dispute, the painter finds out his wife is close to death. He finds himself terribly lonely after her passing and suffers from depression until he decides once more to marry.
