Hermann Thimig

A wife believes her husband has been deceiving her and decides to have some fun at his expense. After a bit of mischief, her husband, a lawyer who is preparing a divorce for a client, decides to start divorce proceedings himself. The wife then realises she has gone too far.

Rupp (Jannings) is a former butcher, made rich in the meat packing industry as a result of the reversal of fortunes brought on by WWI. He is crude, uncouth and uneducated. His son, Fred, is the apple of his father's eye and is an auto enthusiast. The widowed Rupp falls in love with a former aristocrat, Helen, now down on her luck and pawning her last heirloom. He proposes marriage and she accepts in order to save her ailing mother who needs a monetary influx to avoid death. Her former boyfriend, Platen, warns Helen against Rupp's intentions - he and Rupp are enemies, Rupp having caused his being fired for protecting a chorus girl against Rupp's unwanted advances. Meanwhile, Graf, a shyster, arranges purchase of a near bankrupt auto manufacturing firm, Phoenix, to Rupp's great advantage with practically no monetary recognition to Graf, who swears revenge. Rupp comes upon his son begging Helen not to marry his father but to return to Platen.

In London at the turn of the century, underworld kingpin Mack the Knife marries Polly Peachum without the knowledge of her father, the equally enterprising 'king of the beggars'.

When his wife storms out of a dinner planned for his American boss (because their dog is not allowed at the table) an engineer substitutes his secretary and pretends she is the wife

The French-language version of the The Threepenny Opera with a different cast from the German version.

In order to impress a socially superior woman with money, an unsuccessful insurance agent commits sophisticated fraud: he concludes contracts with fictitious people and collects the insurance sums after their "death". However, his first fictional persona is his downfall.