Alles für die Firma (1935)

Sixteen years ago, after a bitter argument with his son Max, old Philipp Sonndorfer stepped down from the company’s management. Since then, Max alone has been in charge of the Sonndorfer & Son textile factory. When Max also falls out with his own son Otto, Otto goes his own way and leaves the company too. Philipp Sonndorfer is very fond of his grandson, so the two make ideal partners in their determination to pay Max back. Otto wants to start his own company with his grandfather Philipp, Sonndorfer & Co., and prove to Max that he has more aptitude for business than Max does. Max is furious that, as he sees it, his closest relatives are stabbing him in the back by setting up a competing business. The competition soon begins to hurt Max badly, and before long he is facing serious cash-flow problems. To avoid losing this business battle to his son, Max demands that Otto marry Daisy Rix, the daughter of an immensely wealthy American business magnate who once fled the country in a hurry after embezzling money. Otto has no intention of doing what his father wants, because he loves Dr. Hertha Becker, a Viennese doctor. Gradually, Max finds himself in deep trouble, and the hoped-for windfall also turns out to be nothing more than a pipe dream: news arrives from the United States that the Rix corporation has collapsed. Max’s career as a businessman is at an end. At that point, old Sonndorfer, persuaded by Ella Sonndorfer, Max’s wife, relents and agrees to give his wayward son financial support after all. Ella has already poured all her own savings into Sonndorfer & Son, her husband’s company—she gave everything for the firm simply to keep her husband’s name from being stained by the taint of bankruptcy. Philipp, who had not thought much of his daughter-in-law until then, now has to revise his opinion of Ella. And so all the Sonndorfers are reunited in peace in the new company, which will henceforth be called “Sonndorfer & Sons,” and the old feud is laid to rest.