Excelsior-Film

German crime film

The athletic young widow Antoinette Peterson gets into financial troubles when a business venture backfires and has to sell her car and her villa. On the road, she meets a stranger whose car she is able to repair and whom she later meets again as the buyer of her house. It is no one else than the venturer William P. Harrison to whom she lost her whole fortune in the first place. He offers her a bet: If she manages to stay for three months as his chauffeur and behaves accordingly, he would give her back her fortune. Although Harrison makes it as hard as possible for her, she keeps up. But they have already fallen in love with each other.

A scullery maid manages to con her way into being adopted by a wealthy factory owner and frees his nephew from an expensive girlfriend.

In this farcical dark comedy/melodrama, Lena manages to lose her place at college by virtue of throwing a minor hissy-fit when she catches her erstwhile boyfriend in bed with another girl. Instead of penalizing the boy for his behavior, Lena gets stuck with a court appearance and must pay a small fine, in addition to losing a boyfriend, her college career, and an apartment. Lena belongs to a film club which occasionally hands out awards, and the membership of it decides to send her into the Russian hinterlands to hand out an award to an obscure filmmaker. Throughout the film, Lena has been associated with a bizarre con man named Stepanych who, when his cons fall through, comes to her in the distant town she has gone to seeking her help in committing suicide.

Young Jan Bergwall visits his grandmother, the so-called centenary, at Woyland Castle. There he meets his cousin Andrea, who everyone calls "Fundvogel". Jan is fascinated by the young girl's beauty, and soon there is an erotic tension in the air between the two. Although they both have strong feelings for each other, they are afraid to make a commitment, even though their domineering grandmother is determined that they marry. Panicked that he might feel obliged to marry Andrea, Jan escapes from this place. Andrea is deeply disappointed and seeks revenge. Out of spite, she becomes involved with the falconer Bartel and is later raped in a wooden hut. The centigress, concerned about morals and customs, then sends Fundvogel to a convent. She escapes from there and flees into the arms of Jan. When he learns from a letter from the countess what has happened to Andrea, he leaves her a second time. In her despair, Fundvogel then throws herself off a bridge into the floods with suicidal intent.