Ernst Winar

Janus Fortuin is a goodhearted piano tuner married to a greedy landlady. Their daughter Polly is engaged to young songwriter George van Reen. When rich uncle Barend from Batavia makes a surprise visit — pretending to be a lodger called 'Van Santen' — the Fortuin family finds their lives turned upside down.

Count De Grancé have two degenerate children. For the adolescent daughter there is still some hope, as her main vice appears to be that she devours the novels of Emile Zola. The son leads a dissolute life in gambling dens, where he cheats at cards, and in night-clubs he associates with dancers. [As of 2024, it appears only a 12-minute fragment of the film survives, at EYE Filmmuseum.]

The guests at Count Otto von Trepow's East Prussian estate Gross-Ehrenfeld are Lord and Lady Ruthven, Mr Hendriks with his wife and foster-daughter Mariska, a gypsy they adopted years ago, Kundry, the fiancée of Otto's son Bernhard, and Count Stanislaus Larinski, who claims to be a Polish revolutionary wanted by the Russian government. A boating trip is organized but ends when the motor breaks down. While waiting for it to be repaired, the guests go to an inn run by Andreas and his daughter Käthe. Hendriks goes for a walk, sees the boat come back and that a man with a bent back leaves it. He notices that Kundry is afraid of Bernhard.

The devil has arrived in Amsterdam, hell-bent on bombarding a poor girl, a wealthy banker and a young painter with great misfortune. This film is presumed lost.

In the prologue, a boat with some shipwrecked persons is drifting at sea. Among them is Baron van Waldheim, who, before he dies of exhaustion, entrusts his little son Alfred to the care of his butler Hendrik. The evil Jan van Oort persuades Hendrik to give him the Baron's papers. When they put the boy ashore, he wounds himself on a nail (leaving a scar that will later prove his identity). For years Van Oort manages to pass himself off as Baron van Waldheim; he is married and has a daughter and a son. One day Hendrik turns up demanding a job as butler, swearing that otherwise he will betray Van Oort's secret. Meanwhile, Alfred - now an adult known as Ulbo Garvema - has become a teacher. Unaware of who Van Oort really is, he accepts the position of tutor to Van Oort's children. He falls in love with the daughter, but Van Oort refuses to give his consent to their marriage. Ulbo and the girl elope.

The story of a "little," well-behaved girl who plunges into the "sinful" big city and risks getting lost there – told with a lighthearted, comedic, and sentimental touch. The nameless girl is persuaded by an experienced friend to earn her own money as a dancer in a bar, just like her. The "little one's" father mustn't find out, as he wants his daughter to lead a respectable, bourgeois life. Therefore, his daughter pretends to work night shifts as a telephone operator and conceals her dancing from him. Unlike her carefree, "experienced" friend, however, the "little one" is careful not to jeopardize her reputation through morally questionable behavior.

Willy, the son of baron Van Hergershuizen, finds himself disinherited after he marries an untitled girl. His wife decides to take action and applies for the job of the baron's housekeeper.