Friedrich Raff

Venice Film Festival 1940

The adventures of smart soldier Gustav Diestelbeck include managing his superior officer, competing for the canteneer's daughter, evading punishment for discipline faults and hosting Prinz Willibald during his visit to the regiment.

A man tries to silence a radio and is taken for a robber.

Vehicle for one of the Weimar era's most beloved actresses: as the popular Prussian queen in 1806-1807, she presides over the humiliating Peace of Tilsit which Napoleon forces on the defeated Germans.

After the tragic death from malaria of her beloved husband his rich widow Helga Vanroh travels restlessly around various Mediterranean countries. In the luxurious surroundings of a hotel in Monte Carlo Mrs. Vanroh keeps apart from society, until one evening she decides to visit the casino. There a young man attracts her curiosity and compassion.

Chicago gangsters use cunning and a series of false identities in a violent battle for dominance, all while attempting to dodge the police.

In this romance, a banker's daughter suddenly breaks off her engagement on her wedding day. She then meets a man who believes in easy money. He sees her as his meal ticket and the two take off together.

An engaged woman discovers her fiancé has a four year old son. Pretending to take a cure she travels to the boy's foster-parents to make his acquaintance.

Two Penny Magic (Zweigroschenzauber) starting off with a little magic trick. It then presents an array of images from swimmers, bicyclers, murderers, airplanes in flight, boxers, lovers, runners, becoming in the end a collection of images in a magazine.

Moritz Stiefel faces expulsion due to poor marks. When he is caught with an essay titled “Shame and Lust”, he is indeed kicked out – instead of classmate Melchior Gabor, who actually penned it. Gabor was drawing on his experiences with neighbourhood girl Wendla. Then Wendla turns up pregnant. Stiefel descends into despair ... Exploitation between Eros and Thanatos in this “sexual tragedy of youth” based on Frank Wedekind’s play. Setting the film in the 1920s provided a chance to explore “modern” youth culture, complete with cigarettes, jazz music, the gramophone, and a goodly bit of alcohol. Richard Oswald, a master of films of manners and young sex beginning in the 1910s, fully explores the temptations of the youthful body, even early childhood flirtatiousness. At the same time, with his target audience in mind, the film laments the bigotry and double standards of the adult world.

Pieter Kruis runs a grocer's shop in a small Dutch town, with which he and his wife Johanne can hardly feed themselves. Nonetheless, he is satisfied with his life, although he suspects that he will probably never win the jackpot. Suddenly Pieter receives a telegram from America: his old school friend Joe, who has made a fortune in the “new world”, asks whether Pieter would like to visit him. As “compensation” for expenses incurred, Pieter will also receive $ 50,000! Of course, Pieter doesn't hesitate for long - the suitcase is quickly packed and a ship ticket reserved. But the little “world traveler” has no idea what kind of adventures await him! Fearing that his insidious brother might speculate on his life insurance and stage a small “accident” on board the ship, Pieter disembarked in Rotterdam, where his entire travel budget was by a few crooks. Then he learns that his ship has actually sunk and suspects that his brother is already worried about the sum insured...

After eight years in exile Martin returns to Berlin. He was involved in the German Revolution of 1918/1919 and had to leave the country as a result. Impoverished and lonely, he struggles on alone until the market saleswoman Hanne offers him shelter, although she does not have much money either. They fall in love and Martin even finds work on the construction site for the subway through Tempelhofer Feld. One day, however, he collapses there, whereupon the pregnant Hanne tries to nurse him back to health.