Die lachende Seele

Princess Stauffenstein has arranged a marriage for her grandnephew Poldi and orders him to meet his unknown bride Steffi. But he falls for alluring dancer Ilonka while his uncle Leopold, sent to reason with him, is enchanted by Steffi.

For more than 50 years, Pauline Neuber has directed the "Olympia" theatre, but lately, business has been bad. It appears that no one will be able to make it better either: the audience doesn't seem to like the plays; the press even less so; and the shareholders of the theatre want to sell their shares. In short, the "Olympia" has one foot in the grave. Erich, grandchild of Pauline and always underestimated by her, gets to know Hella Bergson, the daughter of the theatre critic Peter Bergson, and falls in love with her - but doesn't have an idea whose daughter she is. He plays her some melodies from the first operetta he's ever composed and Hella convinces him to have the operetta performed in the "Olympia". During rehearsal of the operetta, however, a fight breaks out between Erich and Hella over a stupid misunderstanding.

Stefan is the son of the owner of a Bavarian steamship concern, which plies the Danube. During a trip to Budapest, he falls in love with the beautiful Etelka, who, unbeknownst to Stefan, is the daughter of his father's Hungarian competitor. By chance, they lose sight of each other; but as Stefan's father enters into negotiations with Etelka's father about a merger of the two companies, the children find each other once again.

Dan Douglas is a typical Scottish. When his niece Evelyne marries engineer Fred Keller aboard the ship to Scotland, he gives her a pearl necklace as dowry, but it's false. The newlyweds face their differences when the necklace gets lost.

Resolute Ellen takes over the operations of the Grand Hotel "Paradise" from her father and immediately goes into action to increase profits. The first thing she does is turn off the flow of money to a theatre her father was financially sponsoring. Then she throws the charming flirt Count Wetterstein out on his ass after not having paid his hotel bill for two weeks. The alleged count takes on a position as a waiter in the "Paradise" and as Ellen has, in the meantime, fallen for him, she puts him in a managerial position, where he can't so easily flirt with other women. But Wetterstein is being pursued both by the police and creditors and disappears in quick order once again.

Film by Karel Lamac.

A shoemaker has delusions of grandeur when he inherits from a baron whose life he saved.He prevents his daughter from seeing a mere carpenter, abandons humble old friends, and shows poor judgment by falling for a couple of poseurs.

Jenny confronts her cousin Harry: Did he embezzle her fortune? No. But he escapes with married lover Germaine only to return quickly because her husband pursues them. Jenny is convinced Harry is his own double and arrests him at gunpoint.

The film is an adaptation of the 1891 operetta Der Vogelhändler by composer Carl Zeller, with libretto by Moritz West and Ludwig Held, though it incorporates few of the original songs, using them mostly instrumentally or in the background. The plot follows Adam, a Tyrolean bird seller in 18th-century Rhineland, who hopes to marry his beloved Christl, a postmaster's daughter; to secure his future, she arranges for him to perform at court, but complications arise when she is mistakenly suspected of an affair with a philandering prince.

Ludwig Gruber, the director of a spa café, is a good man. Now and again, he makes little adventure-trips to Berlin to find business for his company. The women he is traveling with have an accident on the highway. Gruber is traveling incognito as “Mr. Rabbit” with Lotte, the leader of the group. Because of the accident, they’ll have to overnight together in a hotel. Since Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit are a “couple”, they’ll be getting a double-room, where they can … mmm … do what rabbits do. Since they both insist on climbing into bed with the lights out, it isn’t until the next morning that they notice they’ve been in the same bed the whole night. In the ensuing chaos, Grube loses his wedding ring, which is later sent to the address of Lotte’s mother, who now insists repeatedly, that he marry her daughter.