Lucie Mannheim

Richard Hanney has a rude awakening when a glamorous female spy falls into his bed - with a knife in her back. Having a bit of trouble explaining it all to Scotland Yard, he heads for the hills of Scotland to try to clear his name by locating the spy ring known as The 39 Steps.

A woman reports that her young daughter is missing, but there seems to be no evidence that she ever existed.

An aging truck driver finds smuggled money and becomes involved with a hijacking crowd.

The story of two young lovers takes a tragic turn as the girl falls in love with the boy's father.

A hunt for a spy in a hotel in the South of France just before World War Two.

A Dutch company's owner bankrupts his own company, burns the incriminating ledgers and plans to run to Paris with the company funds but he is caught in the act by his accountant who challenges his actions, leading to a reversal of roles.

When British philosopher Harold Hilliard took off for Warsaw to lecture on the Dysteleological Surd, he had no idea that he would soon become embroiled in international espionage. During the trip he tried to open a suitcase he mistook for his own. When a fellow passenger, a Pole with stainless steel teeth, took umbrage, Hilliard put it down to bad manners, but when the same man saw him pick up the wrong coat in the plane, Hilliard realized that he was suspected of spying. The party at the airport to welcome Hilliard only convinced the Polish agent that the British Secret Service was now picking its men with extraordinary cleverness. Hilliard, whose works were little known in England, was warmed by unaccustomed praise but chilled by the apparent certainty of the counter espionage people that he was a British agent whose code name was Whale.

Director Wolfgang Staudte who left East Germany in 1953 to make movies in West Germany, takes a few swipes at the West German judicial system in this fairly effective courtroom drama about the murder of a four-month-old baby. Police almost immediately arrest the mother Ingrid who is the mistress of the father, a rich business VIP married to another woman. His position and wealth keep him insulated from suspicion. A hot-shot lawyer has to overcome the unaccountably biased perceptions of the police, the judge, the prosecutor and almost everyone else in the judicial system. The defence lawyer, driven to an extreme, knows he has to find the real killer or his client will be convicted.