Maria Eis

A mix between Italian neo-realism, German expressionism and Austrian exploitation.

After her husband's death, Kate Zeller had to sell the farm and move with her four children from the countryside to Vienna. There she opened a small laundry and raised her children. When they grew up, they thought they no longer needed their mother. But it turns out that they still need her...

In 1882 a country girl disappears from a small Hungarian village. The inhabitants suggest that she was murdered by the Jews. Everything is done to accuse them before the trial. A study in stubbornness, racism and intolerance and how to fight against it.

The young emperor Joseph II of Austria and Hungary is not interested in romance and marriage, and every time his mother makes arrangements for him to meet eligible young ladies, he escapes under some pretense. This time he is off on a 'tour of inspection' with his trusted friend von Kleber. Things become complicated when von Kleber, pretending to be the emperor so as to protect the real Joseph from discovery, falls in love with Christine, the landlady of their lodgings. And when Christine later writes to the emperor, her letter is read by the mother of the real emperor, as keen as ever to see him getting married, and so the lady is invited to the imperial court.