Das ist die Liebe der Matrosen (1962)

In the final years of Austria-Hungary, the Bohemian Bogumil Zappler, who comes from near Prague and is a minor official in the Habsburg monarchy’s vast bureaucratic apparatus, is one day transferred to the Adriatic town of Maromir to serve as stationmaster and telegraph operator, despite knowing nothing at all about seafaring. Already somewhat scatterbrained and set in his ways, and not particularly proficient in foreign languages, he receives a telegram one day reading, “Begin hospital construction without delay, urgent!” He accidentally mangles it and, in reconstructing the message, comes up with his own interpretation: “Arrest spies, urgent!” The entire naval base of His Majesty soon falls into turmoil as a result. Put on alert, the base commander, Korvettenkapitän von Lindenau, orders his men to hunt for spies immediately. Just then, two somewhat naïve operetta singers, Bertl Stowasser and Fritz Schönthal, arrive in Maromir. Since Schönthal has dressed up in smart naval attire for a stage performance, while his buddy Bertl plays his orderly, the two men are immediately suspected of being the very spies who were reported. They are promptly locked up in a small shed. But after various further upheavals, everything eventually works out happily, especially since Schönthal falls in love with the charming brunette Charlotte von Lindenau, the commandant’s pretty daughter.