Ellen Plessow

Reinhold Schünzel plays the rigid representative Traugott Bellmann, who publicly condemns the low morals of the night life. Although Belmann's stance is supported by his wife, he is strongly opposed by his father-in-law, a champagne manufacturer. But when he inherits 500 000 Marks in cash and the infamous nightclub "Der Himmel auf Erden" ("Heaven on Earth") from his deceased brother, Bellmann really gets himself into trouble: In order to fulfil his brother's will - and to get hold of the money - , he has to be at the club every night at 9 pm.

Mecklenburg, 19th century. For generations, the Brand family of farmers has worked a piece of land as tenants of the baron, who owns almost all of the village's land. The baron himself comes from a family of farmers who became rich through corruption and were ennobled. He is the absolute potentate, no one dares to contradict him, he takes what he wants and stops at nothing in his excesses. At the same time, he is the center of petty bourgeois, bigoted social life. Johann, the stable boy, wants to marry Mariken Brand and asks the baron for a piece of land so that he can build a life of his own. But the lord is harsh, not only refusing him the land, but also increasing the rent. Johann rebels, trying to rouse the farmers in the village from their lethargy—in vain. Only when Mariken dies does the mood change. A peasant uprising breaks out, and Johann kills the baron.

On his travels, Paul, a journeyman from northern Germany, runs into a childhood friend, Lisei, a puppeteer's daughter. They fall in love and get married. Together with Lisei's father, the young couple moves to Paul's hometown. Although Paul himself is accepted - even respected - by the stuck-up and snooty citizens, the young woman is rejected by the town dwellers, who are imbued with class arrogance. Paul stands up for his wife but the scorn and abuse heaped on her weigh heavily upon him.

When Prince Vain got his shirt fixed, he proclaims that he had slain two lizards in front of the tailor's house - "two in one strike". When the tailor swats seven flies at once, he sows himself a banner saying "seven in one strike", and together with his bird he starts a journey into the world to pronounce his deed.

While staying with her aunt at a fashionable spa, Else receives an unexpected telegram from her mother, begging her to save her father from debtor’s jail. The only way out, it seems, is to approach an elderly acquaintance in order to borrow money from him. Through this telegram, Else is forced into the reality of a world entirely at odds with her romantic imagination – with horrific consequences.

A banker who had fallen out with his family stipulated in his will that his fortune should only pass to the person in possession of the five keys he distributed to his relatives during his lifetime 80 years after his death. Only with all five keys can the cassette in the vault of a bank be opened, granting access to the deceased's assets. 75 years after the banker's death, the fugitive crook Murphy comes into possession of one of the keys, together with a list of the names of the owners of the four remaining keys. Over the next five years, he manages to obtain two more keys by criminal means. Now he just has to get the fourth key from Carlo and the fifth key from the young, rich widow Maria. Any means will do. But the unscrupulous villain has not reckoned with Carlo's shrewdness, who initially falls under suspicion himself, but then takes up the pursuit of the criminal.

In a transport museum, the items on display begin to tell their stories. Most interesting is the history of the Pullman car. In the beginning, it served as transport for a princely family; then became the headquarters car for the military high command; and then, most adventurous of all, it ended up with a circus. Converted to a bar, it finally had its day and was supposed to serve as a placard carrier. Luckily, the museum saved it from this sad fate.

Circus themed films usually provides a thrilling drama. The relatively obscure "Schatten der Manege" provides just what you'd expect. Doing the trapeze act angle, combining it with romance and jealousy for a darker plot, it has a lot of the right the ingredients. Does have moments where it spends too long of circus footage, which ruins some of the pacing, but otherwise a fine circus flick.