Shortly after WWII, the DEFA Studios produced a series of operas and operettas which belonged to the classical German musical heritage. This enchanting film, the very first opera production of DEFA, stands out because of its lavish decor and costumes, its outstanding actors and their masterful voices of that time.
The two pigs building houses of hay and sticks scoff at their brother, building the brick house. But when the wolf comes around and blows their houses down (after trickery like dressing as a foundling sheep fails), they run to their brother's house. And throughout, they sing the classic song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?".
Toronto, Canada, 1899. William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950) fervently believes that he is destined to become Prime Minister, but to do so he will first have to fight his personal obsessions and overcome the many obstacles he will encounter on his tortuous path to power.
A tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower girl. His on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl's benefactor and suitor.
A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time..
After the death of a United States Senator, idealistic Jefferson Smith is appointed as his replacement in Washington. Soon, the naive and earnest new senator has to battle political corruption.
A series of misfortunes plagues a journalist and his new friend.
A man returns to college and is talked into joining he football team and is a real joke on the team, until he is given a drug that gives him super strength.
A factory foreman discovers (to his discontent) that his housewife secretly takes driving lessons in order to get a job and send their son to kindergarten.
Biographical film about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
A few days from a daily life of a regular school in Hungary during fifties.
Vera Meiners' life was sweet but unfortunately for her, it was not to last. Her husband, Jan, left her after she met a former lover in a harmless friendly meeting. Forced to resume her disrupted medical career, she worked in a Swiss clinic but, without the knowledge of the chief surgeon, Vera ordered a risky operation to be performed and was thereafter fired. Penniless, she then works in Spanish nightclubs in order to provide for herself and her child. After many years, she runs into her friend Frank again in one of these nightclubs...
Produced in 1944, finished and released in 1946.
This time the "amici" (friends) are just four: Necchi, Meandri, Mascetti and Sassaroli. Nevertheless they are older they still love to spend their time mainly organizing irresistible jokes to everyone in every kind of situation. Mascetti is hospitalized in a geriatric clinic. Of course the place become immediately the main stage for all their jokes. After some jokes they decided to place an ultimate incredible and farcical joke to the clinic guests.
A traditional chinese story about a girl, Zhu Yingtai, daughter of the noble Mr. Zhu, who goes to Hangzhou to study, dressed as a boy. There, she meets a student, Liang Shanbo, with whom she becomes good friends. They go to school together for the following years, and Zhu gradually falls in love with Liang.
To take a revenge on countess Laura, who slapped him at his proposal, the Governor of the occupied Poland gets her fall in love with a poor student, and exposes him during wedding banquet.
Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.
Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.
He was known as Anatole Litvak during his Hollywood directorial career, but he was still Anatole Litwak when he helmed the German musical Das Lied Einer Nacht (The Song of Night). Famed Polish tenor Jan Kiepura stars as famed Italian tenor Ferraro. Escaping from his tyrannical manager, Ferraro switches identities with a young tourist (Fritz Schulz) and goes off on an unscheduled Swiss holiday. Still travelling incognito, our hero falls in love with a winsome mountain girl (Magda Schneider). Alas, both his romance -- and his freedom -- are placed in jeopardy when it turns out that the charming young fellow with whom Ferraro traded identities was actually a notorious swindler. Anatole Litvak also directed the English-language version of Das Lied Einer Nacht, Be Mine Tonight
Set during the German occupation of Warsaw during WWII, this musical tells the story of several inhabitants of the same tenement house.