Peer Baedecker

Monika (German: Eine Mutter kämpft um ihr Kind, lit. 'A Mother Fights for Her Child') is a 1938 German melodrama film directed and written by Heinz Helbig. The story centers on a singer who relinquishes her illegitimate daughter to a German engineer in São Paulo to pursue her career, only to return eight years later as a celebrated film star and wife of a prominent surgeon, demanding custody after encountering the child on a film set.

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.

Granny Jantzen lives with her three granddaughters Dick, Dalli and Angela on the small pony farm Immenhof in Northern Germany. Since the breeding of ponies isn′t profitable anymore, Granny Jantzen is struggling to keep the family property. During the summer break , young Ethelbert is spending his holiday with his cousins at Immenhof. While Angela has fallen in love with the wealthy land owner Jochen von Roth, Dick and Dalli have to put up with bigheaded urbanite Ethelbert.