Jola Jobst

The delightful Johann Strauss comic opera Die Fledermaus was mercilessly lampooned in this truly bizarre production. For starters, a framing device has been added: After appearing in 300 consecutive appearances of Fledermaus (which translates as The Bat) the lead tenor (Georg Alexander) imagines that he's seeing bats everywhere. Driven a bit over the edge by all this, he falls asleep and has a nightmare about the opera, with a group of non-singers cast in the leading roles. The original libretto about romantic assignations, political imprisonments and mistaken identity is burlesqued to the hilt: at one point, the hero finds out that his prison cell is surrounded by rubber tubes!

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

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

Jozi's aunt runs an inn near the border and has a little side-job: she smuggles. Poor, naive Jozi doesn't know anything about it. Jozi falls in love with the young border patrol officer Hans and her feelings are amply returned. But Hans' supervisor suspects Jozi of smuggling and tries again and again to lead her into illegal temptation. Finally, Hans sees Jozi in a dance bar together with smugglers and believes, too, that she's one of their accomplices.

The taxi driver Fritz gets to know the millionaire-heiress Iris and marries her against the wishes of her family. They live together in a small apartment and are very happy. But Fritz wants to offer Iris more and thus finds a position as a laborer in a large car factory and ends up making a career for himself as a race car driver. But while he is driving from one victory to another, he is getting more and more estranged from his young wife. As his career starts to go downhill, he notices the mistakes he has made and tries to win Iris back.

Amy Dorrit spends her days earning money for the family and looking after her proud father who is a long term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. Amy and her family's world is transformed when her employer's son, Arthur Clennam, returns from overseas to solve his family's mysterious legacy and discovers that their lives are interlinked.