Das Glöcklein unterm Himmelbett (1970)

The story is set in a traditional rural Old Bavarian village in 1912. The action takes place in a village populated by a host of eccentric characters. Mayor Kloiber is the head of the local Virtue and Maidens’ League. His second wife has yet to give him the hoped-for male heir, so someone comes up with the idea of having the local priest bless their marital bed. Before long, she is pregnant. Franziska Kloiber, the mayor’s daughter, has fallen in love with the hunter Martin Stadler, but at her father’s request she is supposed to let a rich young farmer try to impregnate her. Urschl Kranzeder, Kloiber’s maid, then swaps beds with Franziska so that on the night of the trial she can finally have her own turn—and get the lover she wants. Before long, she is pregnant. The waitress Wally, meanwhile, is a very promiscuous woman who has already let 16 men have their way with her. Now a magistrate must determine which of them fathered her son. The judge promptly orders all 16 to share the child-support payments from then on. Emil Giesecke, a fertilizer salesman from Neuruppin and the only Prussian type in this “immoral cesspool,” is looking for a local woman from Bavaria, hoping that this will improve his chances of closing business deals in the area. It works out well that the shrewd Bavarians have their Wally, whom they can foist on the “Saupreiß”—the “damned Prussian”—who thinks she is an innocent country girl. Wally is thus respectably married, and the 16 reluctant child-support payers are off the hook. Finally, there is the sly young Ludwig Steinbeißer, who is also interested in Franziska and immediately seduces her. He is doing just what Martin has done, for Martin has just taken part in an old custom: On a wedding day, the bride-to-be is hidden before the ceremony, and Martin, the rascal, has seized the opportunity to have one last fling with someone else before marrying Franziska. And so the Bavarian round dance comes full circle…