Attila Hörbiger

This ethereal, three-hour biopic starring Helmut Käutner as the writer Karl May interprets «a German hero's life» and thereby paints a picture of an entire era.

Silo is a bum; but he's a bum whose beloved by all and one day, he is found wounded on the banks of the Theiss. Fishermen take him back to the village and Maria, Alexander Renka's young wife, cares for him until he gets better. Silo's wound heals, but he decides to stick with the fishermen to find out who the intended target for the stabbing knife really was (for who would stab a beloved bum?). Maria's husband is acting really strange. He is away from home often and can be found very often near the hut of the gypsy Panna, who can allegedly bewitch any man she pleases. Maria is convinced from her womanly intuition -- never mind asking -- that her husband is doing the dirty with the gypsy and decides to abandon him and the town she lives in. With her brother, she returns to her homeland, the steppe. That same morning, Alexander Renka is found dead on the riverbank and he's been stabbed, too.

As Fraulein Leander prepares for opening night, her life is thrown into turmoil by a variety of romantic misadventures. But she manages to show up on stage at the appointed time, scoring a huge success.

A love story between a simple peasant girl (Holt) and a dashing young officer (Sym), who however doesn't see more in her than a temporary affair.

At a hotel in San Remo, a maharaja living in exile thinks he sees the reincarnation of his dead wife in the pianist Mira and thinks the best way to deal with it is to hit up on the poor girl. Mira, however, has a thing for the violinist Stefan and doesn’t quite know how to deal with the maharaja’s insistence that she become his fiancée. In the end, Mira returns to Stefan and the maharaja returns to his country after his exile is lifted.

A long time-span of Austrian history (from the late 19th century to the years after world war II) is reflected in the ups and downs of a family of piano-makers in Vienna.