Arm wie eine Kirchenmaus (1931)

There is great excitement among the employees of the Vienna Universal Bank. General Director Baron Thomas von Ullrich has barely returned from a business trip to the United States, where he was delighted by the much more efficient working methods. Above all, the much faster pace of work impressed the banker. He wants to introduce all of this at his own bank. First, he fires his longtime, attractive secretary, Olly, and hires in her place Susi Sachs, a young, previously unemployed shorthand typist of the “poor, drab little church mouse” type. She promises a new pace and much greater zeal for work. On his very next business trip—to Paris, where an important oil contract is to be signed—he takes Miss Susi with him. She is not only her boss’s right hand, but also falls in love with him and, quite out of self-interest, makes sure the women who are interested in him do not get too close. Ullrich had something quite different in mind when he fired Olly. The attractive young woman has followed him to the City of Love for a rendezvous. Susi boldly calls off the tête-à-tête with Olly without telling her boss, and instead saddles him with a dull dinner with business partners. When Ullrich discovers Susi’s high-handed actions, he is initially rather indignant, but then realizes that she did it out of love. And so he dictates his final letter to Susi: She is indeed fired, but he would also like to ask her whether she would become his wife.