Ernst Waldow

The ghosts of thieves help a beautiful young countess save her inherited castle from modern developers in this comic horror/musical.

This film is a fascinating showcase for Emil Janning's theatrical play. He's a gentle school teacher who believes in his boys and is easily fooled about all things, while the other town officials want him dismissed. Curiously it's very hard to see what the film is exactly aiming for. Disaster strikes and the lax prof proves to be too far removed of the real problems of the world, on the other hand his enemies are shown in the most unsympathetic, satirical way denouncing the militaristic, bourgeois ideology of the Kaiserreich.

The paths of three men cross for a short time in post-war Berlin. Robert and Willy are unattached and unemployed, Georg has joined them from Hamburg, he has a family and occasionally does something crooked. That's what the three of them are up to together: A safe is to be cracked, the plan comes from Robert. Then Else shows up, a former girlfriend of Robert's who now lives with his buddy Willy. She is interested in Robert again, but he turns her down. Blind with jealousy, Willy nevertheless feels betrayed and rats out their joint scheme to the police. As they stand in front of the strongbox, they are surrounded by police officers. One of them, Inspector Stern, suddenly recognizes in Robert the man who saved his life during the war.

Emil goes to Berlin to see his grandmother with a large amount of money and is offered sweets by a strange man that make him sleep. He wakes up at his stop with no money. It is up to him and a group of children to save the day.

Heralded racing driver Pierre Chaillot has never noticed the pretty young flight attendant who dotes on him adoringly. But when his fiancée's infidelity drives him to the brink of suicide, Pierre's guardian angel takes the form of this stewardess to urge him to choose life. Though the angel confesses her divinity, Pierre is skeptical of the existence of angels. But, despite their difference, the two bond during her brief sojourn in human form.

This German slice-of-life drama is based on a very real postwar dilemma. At the time the film was made, there were over 3000 children living in Germany who'd been fathered by African American GIs. Referred to as "mischlings," these children were often treated as outcasts because of their illegitimacy and skin color. One such mischling is Toxi (played by herself), who is sent to live with her American father when her mother dies. At first, Toxi is welcomed with opened arms, but the father, who already has two children, has neither the time nor the money to care for the girl. Toxi is then bundled off to an orphanage, sparking a serious rift in her father's family. By concentrating on a highly fictionalized plotline, Toxi tends to ignore the thousands of other mischlings whose lives are far more complex and tragic than that of the film's central character.