Bonjour Kathrin (1956)

Kathrin, Sylvio, and Pierre are music students in Paris. Because of their financial difficulties, bailiff Fogar even has their musical instruments seized. However, he lets them continue practicing with them in his warehouse. There, the trio meets the composer Duval, who is also in financial trouble. Duval offers the three musicians a chance to take part in his new revue. But the jealousy of Mr. Columbus, who is supposed to finance the revue, ruins the plan. After the diva Denise has an affair, Columbus—who had intended to finance the revue for her—withdraws from the venture and orders the theater to be converted into a garage. To earn money, Kathrin, Sylvio, and Pierre work as a chambermaid, a page, and a waiter at the “Grand Hotel” in Sanremo, where a major music festival is also scheduled to take place. After Kathrin incapacitates Denise, who has also come to the festival, with the help of a sleeping drug, the young trio performs at the festival alongside Duval and achieves great success. Back in Paris, Pierre launches a publicity campaign without Kathrin’s knowledge to make her name known. Impressed by the reports Pierre has fabricated about her interesting past, Columbus agrees to finance a new Duval revue featuring Kathrin. But shortly before the premiere, the jealous Denise manages to expose Pierre’s hoax. Columbus once again withdraws in anger, and all the equipment for the revue, which Pierre had taken from the unsuspecting Fogar’s warehouse, is returned to the pool of seized assets. As a result, what was supposed to be the revue’s opening performance turns into an auction, where Kathrin, Sylvio, and Pierre nevertheless manage to delight the audience with their talent. The great, unexpected success of their performance paves the way for further engagements for the trio. In the end, Kathrin and Duval, and Pierre and Therese, find love together.