Eduard Rothauser

A man swallows a diamond - and suddenly all people around him change their attitude towards him.

In the very oldfashioned town of Ostend suddenly 13 suitcases are delivered to the hotel, with a note, that O.F. will be here soon and needs 6 rooms (the hotel just has five). This event, probably the biggest in 300 years, starts a small wave of modernisation, yet everybody is wondering who O.F. is. Journalist Stix and architect Stark have an idea how to use this event. They proclaim, that O.F. is a former citizen of the town, who became a millionaire abroad. They tell their fellow citizens that the town still needs modernisation, like better hotels, nightclubs, shops, etc. And soon, Ostend is a boomtown, then a capital. The architect, responsible for the new buildings is finaly allowed to marry the mayor's daughter, while Stix marries the cabaret star and the widowed mayor his new secretary. The only problem is, O.F. hasn't shown up, while finance experts from all over the world are trying to solve the depression problem.

Silent epic on the final years of Frederick II.

"Assassination" - A far-right political organization called "Fellowship Loyalty" seeks contact with an easily seducable man whom she finds in Joachim Burthe. The leader of this deeply democratizing group, the equally characterless and unscrupulous Gregor of Askanius, whispers to the fanatical student seeking guidance that it is finally time to put the death sentence on the corrupt system and its representatives.

If watching a fellow facing indifference/rejection in the slums of Berlin didn't convey enough pathos, Gerhard Lamprecht gathered much of the same crew from Die Verrufenen and turned his attention to the city's population of unwanted children for the heart-tugging Die Unehelichen, released the following year. The trio of foster children at the center of Die Verrufenen are survivors who use their own resourcefulness to get by when the kids' guardians and the system itself let them down.

The story of a Berlin tenement and its inhabitants. A silent drama by Gerhard Lamprecht.

The story of a Berlin tenement and its inhabitants. A silent drama by Gerhard Lamprecht.

A French adventurer fights to save a woman in the life of prostitution.

It was not just the children who were treated badly by the wealthy Weimar republic. Robert Kramer is released from prison but struggles to adjust to civilian life. His father disowns him out, his wife has left him for another man. There is no work. He eventually arrives in a shelter for the homeless, and seeks salvation through Emma, a prostitute.

The Maharaja of Odhapur goes on a trip to Europe and meet the young dancer Ellen Esmond. In her London accommodation, the Savoy Hotel, the Indian prince can prove to be a gallant gentleman and protect Ellen from an intrusive theatrical agent. The Maharaja asks the artist to entertain his guests the following evening with her dancing skills, including England's representatives in India. The maharaja is thrilled with both the person Ellen and her dance performances. His brother Bhima, who was always in the shadow of the Maharajah, drinks excessively and also is also magically attracted to Ellen Esmond.

The director and co-writer Lupu Pick plays musician Erik Paulsson, who loses his beloved son after a peaceful yet critical poetry reading is raided by the tsarist forces. Paulsson, beside himself with grief, kills the officer responsible and is sentenced to life, which will mean 18 years in prison before he is free again. While he is inside, by a strange quirk of fate, his daughter Karin falls in love with writer Sebald Brückner, the son of the state prosecutor, who indicted Paulsson and is a staunch advocate of the death penalty. The conflict between the fathers does not impair the relationship of the young couple. However, when Sebald’s long-desired success on the stage is threatened by a vengeful theatre director who had sexually harassed Karin, he is enraged and kills the other man in a fight. The prosecutor now must face the blow of losing his own son to the death penalty.

Installment in the popular Stuart Webbs detective series. Directed by Joe May.