When the Cock Crows

Nazi propaganda film in which German girls from differing walks of life come together to serve the Fatherland in the 'Bund deutscher Maedl,' by harvesting crops, doing housework, acting as midwives, helping with handicrafts, and singing songs.

Andreas Rellnow decides to leave his troubled parents and pursue an artistic career. As a violin virtuoso, he quickly became popular and a first-class heart-breaker.

Harlander, a media mogul and war profiteer, has been told that he has six months before his sanity will leave him completely. He hires a young nurse, and decides to spend all his money before his six months are up.

In 1885, famous New York Metropolitan Opera singer Maddalena dall' Orto is scheduled to perform at a festival in the German residence of Ilmingen. It soon becomes obvious that she is non other than Magda von Schwartze, who left the town eight years ago against her father's wishes to become a singer.

During a test run for a large race in Sicily the racing car driver Bettina Bang gets into an accident and is saved by a secretive person unknown to her. It later turns out that the unknown man is the race car driver Harry Bredow.

A sensitive girl is sent to an all-girls boarding school and develops a romantic attachment to one of her teachers.

1865. Katharina goes to a ball in Moscow. There she meets again Tchaikowsky, her first and only love. The young, who is now married to wealthy Michael Iwanowitsch Murakin, a man she does not love, has not forgotten Piotr Illich, the (not yet) famous composer. Both are still in love with each other but Piotr is engaged to Nastassia, a dancer, while for her part Katharina cannot leave her husband. Tchaikowky's first love then decides to sacrifice her happiness to the success of the composer, sponsoring him in secret. Something Piotr will learn only years after. When Katharina finds herself free at last it is too late: Tchaikowsky is dying of cholera and she only has time to close his eyes.

Karl Kramer is a waiter in a beach hotel on the Baltic Sea. But he has completely different plans in mind for the future. Before he marries Grete Wernicke, the daughter of the hotel manager, he wants to have enough money himself.

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 film portrays the life of the Heidelberg-born Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine, who married into the French royal family during the reign of Louis XIV.

The young Styrian woman Therese Brandl desperately wants to work in the theater and therefore travels by train to Vienna to pursue artistic training. The scholarship granted by the elderly Countess Hoyer is intended to guarantee her financial independence. Unaware that she is to be picked up from the Vienna train station, the student immediately takes a taxi upon arrival and asks for recommendations for both an affordable hotel and a charming little pub. Therese gets approached by an older gentleman, a gray-haired bon vivant with considerable life experience. After several glasses of wine, they leave the establishment together and go to Therese's room. Apparently, things escalate there, and they spend the night together without having been introduced. The surprise is all the greater for Therese when she goes to the drama academy the following day to begin her training: her future teacher is none other than the gallant and lover from the previous night, Dr. Alexander Dahlen.