Maria Andergast

Composer Franz Schubert becomes involved with a family with three daughters, falling in love with the two blonds, first one, then the other; but will he notice the quiet brunet third daughter, who has fallen madly in love with him?

The residents of the villages Strasslach and Rott are anything but friends. The residents of the “enemy” town are ridiculed at every chance the residents of the other village can get to do so. And it’s no different, when Rott is getting ready to celebrate the 300th anniversary of its founding. The residents of Strasslach ridicule their neighbors, because the Rotters don’t want to celebrate the anniversary, because it’ll cost money. Even the church doesn’t have an organ, because that would cost money, too.

The film is an adaptation of the 1891 operetta Der Vogelhändler by composer Carl Zeller, with libretto by Moritz West and Ludwig Held, though it incorporates few of the original songs, using them mostly instrumentally or in the background. The plot follows Adam, a Tyrolean bird seller in 18th-century Rhineland, who hopes to marry his beloved Christl, a postmaster's daughter; to secure his future, she arranges for him to perform at court, but complications arise when she is mistakenly suspected of an affair with a philandering prince.

Endstation offers the American viewer tantalizing glimpses of busy, bustling mid-1930s Vienna. Otherwise, this minor yarn of an amorous streetcar conductor is strictly formula material. The film benefits from the star power of Paul Horbiger, resplendently garbed in an elaborate conductor's uniform. Also worth noting is the performance of Maria Andergest as the woebegone hatmaker whose fate is inextricably linked with hero Horbiger. Incidentally though the direction is credited with one E. W. Emo, Paul Horbiger actually called most of the shots on Endstation.

A comedy directed by Géza von Radványi.