Rudolf Schneider

Richard Mertens, a successful magazine editor with a cold, empty marriage to Lucy, seeks excitement through an affair with younger colleague Eva. Yet his need for status traps him in superficiality, undermining genuine connection. A legal battle with old friend Ferrow, won through perjury, reveals Mertens’s moral emptiness, shattering his relationship with Eva. Alone, he finds solace only in listening to bartender Brigitte.

During a dinner given by a wealthy baron and his wife, attended by four of her suitors in a 19th century German manor, a shadow-player rescues the marriage by giving all the guests a vision what might happen tonight if the baron stays jealous and the suitors do not reduce their advances towards his beautiful wife. Or was it a vision?

Cheston, a millionaire, is looking after Maud, a beautiful woman from the 'demimonde'. Her brother, Brilburn, forces her to ask her rich admirer for an expensive piece of jewelry. Cheston buys a precious pearl necklace. Lost film.