Der Fechter von Ravenna (1923)

The story is set in the world of the circus. The dancer Severine and the acrobat Fred perform there. Severine loves the performer, but he has no interest in her at all and is instead courting another woman. Spurned in this way, Severine is consumed by a desire for revenge, and one day she carries out a fatal attack on Fred. His tampered apparatus—she had loosened the screws on his trapeze swing—comes loose, and Fred plunges to his death. Only one other performer, Galaor, knows that Severine committed the murder, but he keeps quiet because he, in turn, loves the murderous girl. Severine, however, has no interest in him, but events drive her into his arms. From then on, the two perform together in a sensational act called “The Fencers of Ravenna.” Severine simply cannot forget Fred, however, and when one day she meets a celebrated surgeon named Professor Horace Mitford, she is instantly smitten, because he has exactly the same features as Fred, whom she murdered. Galaor tries in vain to stop his beloved Severine from throwing herself into Mitford’s arms. Eventually, an accident staged by Galaor takes place during a performance of “The Fencers,” and Severine is seriously injured. The perpetrator of the murder plot then flees in a panic and is said to have died in a railway accident. In reality, however, Galaor has returned to the very circus where Severine once committed the murder and works there as the arena’s spotlight operator. Severine’s successor performs there, an artist who has a child by the late Fred. When she discovers who is responsible for the death of her child’s father, the performer begins plotting revenge. Severine, who has become very happy with her husband Horace, learns of the revenge plan and takes a direct approach: she visits her former workplace, hoping to reconcile with the furious woman bent on revenge. She succeeds during a performance, when the dead man’s child is put in mortal danger by a short circuit and Severine saves the child.