Der kleine Grenzverkehr

Attractive Julia Swinton is a middle-aged woman. Her life went normally and without big occurrences. But through the unexplained death of a familiar young lady in a houseboat and the sudden appearance of a strange stranger, unrest and threat now break into the seemingly so peaceful everyday life of the Swinton family. As it soon turns out, Mr. Swinton has a secret relationship with the lady on the boathouse...

Overly proper family man Walter Brinkmann is coaxed to a cabaret by free‐spirited friend Bernd. After a spoof of himself, Walter decides to embrace life’s fun side. With his wife away, he returns to the cabaret, where he harmlessly flirts with singer Fee Freiberg. His children and housekeeper secretly shadow him, and when his wife returns, she finds him surprisingly transformed, and then surprisingly grateful.

An elderly lady has a trauma and simply must celebrate Christmas every day of the year, to the dismay of her family and relatives.

Two inspiration sources appear clearly: contemporary American gangster movies and Alfred Döblin’s novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929).

Otto, a feckless Everyman, tries to adjust to the postwar travails of his defeated nation. Stymied by black-market profiteers and government bureaucrats, Otto begins fantasizing about a happier life at the end of that ever-elusive rainbow.

Poldi Sonnleitner had actually wanted to trade the local mountains for the vastness of the open sea. That’s why he had become a sailor. But during a visit home, everything suddenly changes for him, because all he wants is to stay with his girlfriend Dorle, the grocer’s daughter. When he learns that she has long been promised to the village blacksmith Domini—once Poldi’s best friend—he sets out on a life-threatening mountain trek in a fit of rage. As fate would have it, only his friend Domini can save him.

As a gang of classy jewel thieves hop from one European country to another, an engineer rescues a woman from their clutches.

The painter Hans Hauser falls head over heels in love with the "Black Forest girl" Bärbele Riederle. He travels to her home village and soon the two realize that they are made for each other.

American billionaire George B. Stefenson is on a business trip through Europe when, due to his heavy workload, he suffers a heart attack. The doctor called to his aid, Dr. Hartung, strongly advises him to take a three-month break—in other words, to take a “vacation from himself.” After some hesitation, Stefenson agrees and also commits to funding the project, since an institution offering such a program has so far existed only as a dream in the doctor’s mind. As part of the “vacation from the self,” all participants are given a new first name and work clothes so they do not have to reveal their true identities to any of the other residents.