Ernst Legal

Diederich Heßling is scared of everything and everyone. But as he grows up, he comes to realize that he has to offer his services to the powers-that-be if he wants to wield power himself. His life motto now runs: bow to those at the top and tread on those below. In this way, he always succeeds: as a student in a duel-fighting student fraternity and as a businessman in a paper factory. He cajoles the obese district administrative president Von Wulkow and wins his favor. He slanders his financial rivals and hatches a plot with the social democrats in the town council. On his honeymoon with his rich wife Guste, he finally finds a chance to do his beloved Kaiser a favor. And when a memorial to the Kaiser is unveiled in the town where Diederich lives and works, he delivers the address. He stands behind the lectern in the pouring rain, saluting his Kaiser. The crowd is dispersed. Everything is laid in ruins...

Melodrama set during wartime.

A man and a woman struggle to stifle their love for each other, even after he moves away to travel the world and she marries a suitor.

Jordan, a famous criminal lawyer, will only represent clients, of whose innocence he is convinced (must be financially not-too-well-off). One day, his future son-in-law, the jeweler Fabian, is arrested on suspicion of murder on the day before his wedding. He is said to have murdered his ex-wife, the dancer Ria Norady. The conductor Gillmore found her dead in her dressing room shortly after a visit from Fabian. Gisela Jordan asks her father to defend him. After speaking to Fabian, the lawyer is convinced he's innocent. But since there is no proof of this, he decides to go and try and find the real murderer himself.

Already a famous painter, Rembrandt van Rijn is commissioned to paint the Amsterdam Archers' Guild. But upon completion of the picture, the men of the guild feel duped, because they don't consider themselves flatteringly depicted in the painting. They therefore decline to pay for the work. During this dispute, the painter finds out his wife is close to death. He finds himself terribly lonely after her passing and suffers from depression until he decides once more to marry.

A grieving husband tries to uncover the truth behind his wife's suicide, leading him to discover a tragic tale of infidelity and redemption.

Historical drama portraying the life of German baroque architect Andreas Schlüter.

A dramatization of the melodramatic story that inspired the popular opera, Pagliacci.German language version of a film simultaneously shot in an Italian version.

Professor Schott, director of the Oberland Mountain Observatory, has discovered a new star, which he names "Nova Hercules." Working alongside him are Dr. Gerellis and Dr. Alvens, both vying for the affections of the new assistant, Dr. Aenne Bruck, while the professor's wife, unhappy in her marriage, is interested in Dr. Gerellis and therefore wants a divorce. Due to the emotional entanglements, disappointment, and jealousy, considerable tension arises at the observatory. Then Professor Schott is found dead—poisoned with cyanide. Initially, Gerellis is suspected of the murder, but a photograph of the newly discovered star takes an unexpected turn.

No synopsis available yet.

Eduard Winkelmann, the owner of an apartment building in Munich, never tires of making life difficult for his renters. One day, a young woman, Erika, shows up at his door. She is the illegitimate daughter of a long-past love affair.

An adventurous peasant is supposed to be hanged, but gets told about life after death, how beautiful it is, and wants to get into heaven anyway even if he should be pardoned. A woman complicates the matter.

1944 film.

Anna Jobst is the daughter of a rich, conservative farmer. Living on the bank of the Moldau, she wishes nothing more than follow the river to Prague, the "Golden City". After arriving, she quickly falls into a bad crowd.

A widowed landlady in East Prussia, who, despite his acquittal by the court, believes the forester to have murdered her husband, opposes her son's marriage to the forester's daughter and even wants to sell the farm because of it. The exposure of a border smuggler as the perpetrator turns everything around for the better.

No synopsis available yet.

An aging musician looks back on his life, his roots in a country village, his loves, and his brief imprisonment.

In 1948, students from Berlin University take part in the filming of a movie about the 1848 revolution as extras. A dispute arises between Else and Heinz, who tends to dismiss the revolution as a comical affair. Two fiercely opposing camps form at the university. But Heinz begins to reflect, and reading about a young student who lost his life in the turbulent days a hundred years earlier slowly changes his attitude. The conclusion of the filming at the Wartburg also reunites him with Else.

Movie adaptation of the Leoncavalo's famous opera. A troupe of traveling actors is being welcomed by villagers in Calabria in the summer of 1866.

While on leave in Berlin during the Second World War, a soldier named Hans meets a young woman named Monika. They fall in love and make plans for a future together after the war. Yet their later attempts to find an apartment and get married are hindered by the housing shortage and they have to stay separately with relatives.

Two dubious characters disguise themselves as Holmes and Watson to gain attention and end up chasing counterfeiters and stolen stamps.

A 19th-century London cabaret singer is deported to prison in Australia. Her crime? Taking the blame when her lover bounces checks.

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.

Heinz Rühmann plays the "model husband" who, when his bored wife threatens to leave him, embarks on an adventurous night.

Charley Wyckham and Jack Chesney pressure fellow student Fancourt Babberly to pose as Charley's Brazilian Aunt Donna Lucia. Their purpose is to have a chaperone for their amorous visits with Amy and Kitty, niece and ward of crusty Stephen Spettigue. Complications begin when Fancourt, in drag, becomes the love object of old Spettigue and Sir Francis Chesney.

Because his future wife abandoned him shortly before the wedding, an old baron has decided that he doesn't want any women near him anymore. The daughter of the flaky woman decides to take it upon herself to get the baron and her mother back together again and dresses up as a gypsy boy to use music from "his" violin to soften the baron's heart ...

During an early, unsuccessful attempt at climbing the Matterhorn, Edward Whymper finds himself rescued by an italian guide, Jean Antoine Carrel. The two men quickly build a friendship and agree to reach the peak together. However, local villagers ploto to divide the alliance of Whymper and Carrel and both men join rival teams as they set out in a race to conquer the mountain. A mountaineering drama based on the novel by Carl Haensel and inspired in the dramatic true story of Edward Whymper, who led the first successful ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. There is another version of the film titled The Challenge, shot the same year in English.

William MacPhab loses seven-pounds in the stock market and decides to slap the man who was responsible for the stock manipulation that caused him to lose his money. Astor Terbanks, the stock-market manipulator is surprised the next day when he gets soundly slapped by MacPhab, and the latter promises to deliver one more a day for the next six days. Terbank's daughter, Daisy, is amused by the procedure and is attracted to MacPhab.

A renowned actress rescues a small theater, which is on the verge of bankruptcy.

A villager is tempted by a sophisticated city woman and almost kills his wife in a boating accident.

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.

The stand-alone opera singer Carmen Casini dare not admit to her adult son, the spoiled race car driver Cecil, that she ruined her voice on a stormy day at the racetrack and that her career is thus at an end. Meanwhile, Cecil has fallen in love with the pretty Colette … without suspecting that her father, the wealthy Bartell, was a former lover of his mother and that he’s Cecil’s daddy. Thus, both Carmen and Bartell try to prevent the unfolding love-relationship between brother and sister, because this ain’t the Ozarks, you know! Only after the unhappy Cecil tries to commit suicide after an argument with his mother do Carmen and Bartell realize they still love one another. Suicide attempt be damned; let’s go out on a date! A movie that screams “Fun for the whole family.”

"The Man with the Paw" is what people call the very successful banker Wiegant, who is desperately in love with Lena Kroning, the wife of the lawyer Hugo Kroning. So as to be nearer to her, Wiegant hires her husband to be the bank's lawyer. Shortly thereafter, Wiegant is suspected of having conned the Countess Steindorff during a telephone conversation; but he never did. During the relevant period of time, he was with Lena "having tea" (uh huh), which he conceals from the lawyer-husband, so as to protect Lena.

When a young woman becomes aware of her husband's wandering attentions, she plots his retribution.

Paris, 1830: Jean-Gaspard Debureau performs on the stage and delights his audience with song, wit and charm. He is, however, very unpopular with King Charles X, who is the target of much of Debureau's scornful jests. That would be a somewhat tolerable situation if it weren't for the fact that Debureau has fallen for a countess, who happens to be the King's mistress.

Remake of a 1929 German film by the same title about a man and a police dog.

When the dancer Carmen visits the bullfighter Antonio, who has stabbed a gypsy, in prison, she meets the dragoon brigadier José. The two immediately take a liking to each other, and from that day on, José often visits the café where Carmen dances. When Carmen injures another dancer in a jealous quarrel, José is ordered to arrest her...

The cashier, Jürgen Borb, has already worked for 10 years at Dadag in Hamburg and is an example for customer service and company loyalty. His professionalism are matched by the trust of his employers, who, while relating to him in an acceptable manner professionally, desire no closer contact with him outside of the workplace. When Borb suddenly disappears one day, Dadag's directors and Borb's colleagues are surprised. They become even more surprised when they soon discover that Borb has embezzled well over a million marks from the firm. His stepsister, Mette, doesn't believe that her stepbrother is an embezzler. In the meantime, she has fallen in love with a criminal investigator, who, she believes, is simply exploiting her affections to get to Borb. Then one day, the criminal investigator finds a body in the cellar of a house Borb rented under a false name and this man created a phony ID card for Borb, identifying him as a resident of a South American country.

The first partly colored German fairy tale film directed by Fritz Genschow. The film has a frame story shot in black and white and a middle section in color that tells the story of Little Red Riding Hood, who is sent by her mother to her grandmother with cake and wine. On the way there, it passes through the dark forest. She meets the wicked wolf, to whom she reveals the location of her grandmother's house. The wolf rushes to her grandmother's house, eats her whole, puts on her hood and lies down in bed. When Little Red Riding Hood arrives, he eats her too. The "Uncle Hunter" appears as a rescuer in uniform and frees them both from the wolf's belly.

The story of Hannele, an unhappy girl who is beaten by her stepfather and tries to commit suicide.

Curt serenades his wife Charlott from the garden without her recognizing him. When she later doesn't refer to the incident he assumes that she is falling for the 'unknown' suitor and deliberately puts a notorious womanizer on her trail.

During a journey of the "Ceder", the Captain, von Moltmann, disappears. It looks like an accident, but it could also have been murder. Attorney Dr. Burger and superintendent Störensen discover quickly that two of the crewmen hated the Captain: Chief officer Rohlfs suspects an affair between his fianceé Gerda and von Moltmann. Chief engineer Sparkuhl thinks the Captain has seduced his niece, who later committed suicide. The court decides that the Captain has gone overboard without anyone else's "help", but the rumors don't come to an end.

Gabriele Bordersen, a woman from a good home, wants to see what real life is like among the common folk. With her stewardess Fanny Flint and the tour guide Simikry, she goes off to visit a sailors' bar. Fanny and Gabriele change clothes, which allows the stewardess to introduce herself as a fine lady. When Gabriele asks Fanny to leave with her, Fanny begs her to give her an hour more out of fear of embarrassment. Gabriele, however, is thrown out of the bar by the owner without money and papers; is picked up by the cops; and suffers a nervous breakdown, leading to her being sent to a hospital. No one believes in the slightest that she's really Gabriele Brodersen.

A travelling cinema arrives in a small, Italian town. The only place suitable for the screenings is the inn run by Mirandolina, a woman with an impeccable reputation. Tino, who works for the cinema, becomes enamoured of Mirandolina but finds his advances to her hindered by her upright reputation and the rivalry of local figures.

An actress and her lawyer husband are so busy that their maid becomes the real mother to their six year old boy and at one point causes consternation by taking the child away to her home village.

When a young woman becomes aware of her husband's wandering attentions, she plots his comeuppance.

The underage Rosemarie is still too young to run her inherited farm by herself; but she's more than aware that her foster father and the farm's administrator, the farmer Schlieker, is constantly skimming from the farm's finances to line his own pocket. To put an end to Schlieker's scheme, Rosemarie asks her godfather, Professor Kittgus, for help. But when Kittgus confronts Schlieker, the farmer not only proves to be unreasonable but also violent...

A man, feeling unappreciated, leaves his wife for a cabaret singer, while the wife meets a young pilot and decides to join him abroad.

A woman steals money from her banker husband but her lover, a baron, is jailed.He escapes and under a new identity is a circus daredevil but she threatens him and his new sweetheart.

Before the First World War, Dr. Hans Stockmann had a practice in a small town. His powerhungry brother is the mayor of Bad Trimburg, which has developed into a respectable resort. Dr. Stockmann is called in to become the town’s chief physician. He considers the sanitary conditions to be intolerable and insists on a clean-up. His ambitious brother and all those who, till now, have profited well from the corner cutting, are, of course, against that for financial reasons. The doctor is condemned from all sides and the conflict escalates.

Cheeky Jette is a typical Berlin girl. Together with her mother, she performs couplets in a Berlin suburb theatre every night. Then, a young Austrian baron, who is worshipping Jette, enables her to audition for Königstädtisches Theater. Although she at first fails with an aria from an opera, Jette wins over the hearts of the board members with her fresh style when she performs a cheeky couplet that was written by Barsch, the stage manager of the suburb theater.

After Willy privately photographs Renee her image headlines an ad campaign making her a star model. Her sister Elli loses her acting job but Willy's friend Max adds her singing to his musical variety act, and they score an instant success.

No synopsis available yet.

Nazi era depiction of decadent British aristocracy: A madcap country heiress was betrothed to a Lord but runs off with a young inventor after she is found in a compromising position, to avoid a scandal.

The student Hans Kessler is suspected of having murdered the banker Hergotin, who has been found dead in his hotel in Zurich. When a search is launched for an unknown woman, who was seen in the hotel at the time of the murder, Hans suddenly confesses to the deed. The prosecution is headed by Schweda and Hans is sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Only afterwards does Regine, Hans' sister, find out about the events. She is convinced that her brother is innocent and is covering for the actual murderer.

One of the many patients in the care of a nice bachelor pediatrician is the illegitimate son of a lady violinist.Will the kind doctor do more to help, by marrying her?

Der Florentiner Hut (The Leghorn Hat), a 1939 German film directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner

A poet is hired by the owner of a wax museum in a circus to write tales about Harun al Raschid, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper. While writing, the poet and the daughter of the owner, Eva, fantasize the fantastic stories and fall in love for each other.

After the death of Napoleon, colonel Montaner plots to restore the Empire, but falls in love with Lise, a beautiful dancer.

In his film version, Curt Goetz shifts the focus away from the poetic output towards the young Friedrich Schiller himself: on the misery of his soul whilst a pupil of the ducal military academy, his opposition to the strict physical drill and the narrow intellectual confines of the "Karlsschule", his juvenile passion for the works of Shakespeare, Klopstock and Lessing, his anger at unjust authorities, his devotion to women, and finally his inability to cope with financial matters