Mädchen im Vorzimmer

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

In the second part of the drama, the wounded Jürgen hears about the happy years his father Michael spent with his wife Bim at the "Fohlenhof." He learns how the war took everything from him and how Michael was nearly broken by the death of his beloved Bim, who died while giving birth to Jürgen. It was only through his favorite horse that he began to believe in life again and fight for his son.

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 unknown guest checks into an obscure hotel. He is a burly but well-dressed gentleman carrying an umbrella and a tree frog in a glass. This man spends most of his time wandering the hallways and staircases of the inn, ostensibly to hunt for flies to feed his pet. But quite obviously, there is more to it than that: the man also listens at doors and peeks through their keyholes.

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.

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

An adventurer, Peter Diercksen, travels to South America to guide an expedition into the jungle. However, when the ship is quarantined he believes he has a serious disease. He does not accompany the trip, which runs into major problems.

After World War II, Jürgen Godeysen ends up in a hospital, wounded and traumatized. There, the young Nicoline reads to him from the diaries of his father, Michael. The entries chronicle his life and loves, from the moment he first encountered his first love as a young ensign in Berlin at the turn of the century, to the moment he returned from World War I broken and with no will to live.

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.

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.

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.

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.