Under the Lantern

Drama in a small German water town where various characters clash against a backdrop of money, gambling and love.

A young woman working as a secretary for a Berlin car business tries to impress a rich Australian visitor by pretending she is a foreign countess.

An aging prostitute develops a motherly affection for a kind young man, but her pimp does not approve.

Orphan Enid White becomes the ward of a cruel man. She gets close to her guardian's wife and also to his son, who secretly comes to visit when his father is not around. One evening Enid is whipped by the patriarch, and hours later he is found dead. An investigation follows.

A gambling-drama based on Dostoevsky’s works: The retired General Kirileff is addicted to gambling and also has a costly affair. He takes out a loan from the greedy imposter Vincent, for which he is to pay an exorbitant interest rate. Vincent, for his part, wants to get closer to Kirileff’s daughter Nina, who is to inherit her grandmother’s fortune one day. Nina tries to help her father and goes to the gambling tables, only to lose a lot of money. She asks Alexej, her father’s secretary, to play for her. Alexej is in love with Nina and would do anything for her. He plays; at first loses; then asks Nina to get Vincent out of there. Once that happens, he wins a large amount of money, becomes overbearing and treats Nina like a prostitute.

A young reckless womaniser is trapped one night at his club into a bet with a Mexican that he will win his wife before morning. There will be a duel in any case: if he loses his bet the Mexican will fire first.

Alois, Wendelin, Schani and Franz operate an auto repair shop in Vienna. One evening, Alois fishes the suicidal Hannerl out of the Danube and takes her to live with him. The timid and taciturn woman soon disappears however, and with her, a large amount of cash out of the shop's cash register. A disappointed Alois wishes to forget about her, but his three friends look for Hannerl and the money. As it turns out, she's married to the smuggler Kerrylis, who forces her to take part in his business; that's why she tried to kill herself. When Kerrylis is found dead, Alois is suspected of being the murderer.

A Prussian commander disobeys orders and goes to find a British envoy who can negotiate a pact with Austria to help fight off Napoleon in 1806.

Gerhard Lamprecht sketches a cross-section of Germany's new post-war society, with its winners, social climbers, and losers, represented by the social microcosm of an apartment building. The gossip-mad Frau Mierig from the rear building gives the newly-arrived Frau Kaminski, the janitor's wife, a lively initiation into the tenants and their peculiarities.

When a suspicious man bribes Emil with chocolate in return for a bundle of cash, the young lad thinks of a plan to catch him.

Wolf Noltenius is a real globetrotter. Early on, this talented young man travelled far and wide, where he earned fame as a construction planner. He moved to Brazil; but one day, homesickness got the best of him. He spontaneously travelled back to his hometown to visit his brother Werner and his family. Wolf and Werner, who both went into the same profession, couldn't be any more different: the one is worldly and an experienced man-about-town; the other a small bourgeois.

An Italian engineer who had made a strategically important invention to ward off enemy aircraft is killed in a robbery. As the plans have presumably fallen into the hands of spies, secret service captain Bergall is given the task of recovering the papers. Bergall initially adopts a false name and appears as Mr. Gran, whom nobody knows. Under this name, he rents a room in the Hotel Danieli in Venice and makes the acquaintance of the shipowner's daughter Viola Dolleen. With her help, he is able to eliminate Captain Gordon, who is also interested in the plans. When Gran learns that the plans are now in the possession of the art dealer Tschernikoff, who wants to sell them to Gordon, he immediately travels to Rome, visits the art dealer Titian and pretends to be Gordon. In the art dealer's remote villa, events come thick and fast...

In 1812, during the French period, large parts of Germany are occupied by the troops of Napoleon. Several paramilitary Freikorps units battle the French forces, among them the Black Brunswickers led by the 'Black Duke' Frederick William of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. After the War of the Fifth Coalition, the Black Hussars are pursued by Napoleon throughout the country, but frequently take refuge with the noble-minded German people.