Acting
To resolve a feud between two villages over a horse, the burgomasters propose that a man from one town marry a woman from the other.
A German wartime biography of Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the Diesel engine. The movie links the importance of the engine to the war by starting the movie with newsreel clips of German Navy U-boats in action.
In a village near a deadly mountain ascent the people repeatedly have to help climbers in danger who didn't make it to the top, in fact nobody made it yet up there. Hansi Knoteck can't stand anymore the danger after a member of the rescue party dies and demands from Attila Hörbiger that he steps back from participating in his rescue efforts. Finally he relents but the villagers ostracize them. In the meantime Winnie Markus tries to seduce Richard Häußler who makes the life for his wife Viktoria von Ballasko a hell through his infidelities.
Warsaw 1831: The young music student Frédéric Chopin falls in love with the singer Constantia. When his professor learns that Polish revolutionaries want to persuade Chopin to take part in their uprising, he and Constantia hatch a plan to keep Chopin away from the revolution: Constantia pretends that she no longer loves him, so that Chopin accepts an offer to go to a concert in Paris. There, however, he meets the famous writer George Sand and falls in love with her.
The year is 1800. Leopold von Röckl and Ferdinand von Wangenheim, two extremely fun-loving guards lieutenants, before whom no coat is safe, leave the residence of the sovereign for a while - and for good reason: Leopold has begun an affair with Princess Gabriele, the sovereign's daughter, and the excitement surrounding it should subside somewhat in his absence; Ferdinand, meanwhile, travels to see Privy Councillor Krallinger, who is supposed to teach him a little about manners.
A small, mountain town. The populace here has long lived off the artisanal production of axes. But due to a glut of cheap, factory goods, the business magnate Brugger is no longer able to sell his axes and he dies before a complete economic collapse. His daughter Anna wants to marry Thomas Volderauer, a friend of her father's, who wishes to once more bring work to the town by moving his metal working factory there. Thus Franz, the son of old Atzinger, has no chance with Anna; especially as his father implores Anna to marry Volderauer. Embittered, Franz leaves the town. In order to earn money, Franz ends up as a tourguide for wealthy tourists and notices that their ice picks aren't good for anything, except maybe cutting ice for their fancy cocktails. He realizes that the manufacture of high quality ice picks, for example, could be good business for his town. He therefore returns there and organizes resistance to the demolition of the town forge.
Six German boys visit the zoologist writer Bengt Berg in Sweden where they are shown film footage of water animals, migratory birds and elephants in the Nile area, narrated by the host's naturalistic adventure stories.
This is essentially a "Kraft durch Freude" propaganda film though the organization is never mentioned. A company's three day outing might very well be the last because bankruptcy is just around the corner. The people on the trip have all their individual problems and wishes, too. This episodic film might sound quite promising considering the basic idea but its script is determinedly optimistic and leads everything and anything to a happy end. The dramatic parts are finished in a rather implausible way, the comedic are terribly predictable. There's a badly misjudged singing scene in the bus, some bavarian shtick, the Regensburger Domspatzen are singing in Augsburg and so on...
High up in the mountains, a peasant family drags themselves through the towering granite blocks with all their possessions to make a new home for themselves. The mountains, however, have no interest in seeing them make a home up there: for months, huge boulders have been crashing down around them; trees have been falling on the walls of their new home and collapsing it ... and more than one time.
The greengrocer Ferdinand Strubel wants his daughter Marianne to marry the son of the brewery owner Baron von Schnackenberg. Since Strubel is an impossibly cheap bastard, the marriage is to take place on 20 May, which, coincidentally, is the same day the city is having a grand festival for him to celebrate his company's being in business for 100 years. Marianne, however, has fallen in love with Leopold, a gym teacher; and when he reads an article in the newspaper about the upcoming arrival of Haley's Comet on 19 May, he comes up with an idea how he can prevent the wedding from taking place: He tells Strubel that the world is going to come to an end when the comet shows up, so that Strubel will see the errors of his way, cancel the arranged wedding and will become a better person for it. (Sucker!).
