Fritz Kirchhoff

Film by Frank Vogel.

1944 German film.

An interfering mother plans husbands for her three daughters as they come of marriageable age. However she pays no attention to her daughters own feeling until the eventual intervention of her husband manages to bring things to a happy conclusion.

The farmers on the Lohhof, the largest farm in the area, are well known all around and have the highest prestige amongst their peers, not the least, because they never suffer any shortage of water. When in times of drought the water everywhere else has dried into nothingness, the water on the Lohhof is abundant and fresh. But one very dry summer, the drought comes to the Lohhof, too, and this time, the source of the water has dried up. And so, with diving rod in hand, one of the farm's old peasants goes on his merry little way to find a new source of water. At one point, the diving rod bends so strongly, that it almost slips out of the old man's hands. Convinced that there must be a huge source of water nearby, all the farmers of the Lohhof bend their backs to find the new well. They dig long, but they dig in vain: no water is found, only a strange sand, which is yellowish, shiny and flickers golden in the sun.

A retired rail official and his wife Amalie purchase a disused railroad wagon to convert it into a villa in the countryside. One day, Amalie discovers 25,000 Marks hidden behind a picture in the rail car. The money was put there by a Dutch couple, who tried to smuggle the money across the border during the train’s last journey. Sorely tempted to keep the money, Amalie turns it over to the authorities. The smugglers, who finally find the rail car after a long search, will be turned over to the cops, too.

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...