Der Vogelhändler (1953)

The carefree bird seller Adam plans to marry his fiancée, Christel. To help finance the wedding, Christel tries to secure him a position with the all-powerful prince. For the prince’s wife, Marie Louise, who is not averse to a little extramarital pleasure, the young man is a pleasant diversion, and Adam promptly falls in love with her. Christel suspects the worst and, through her own behavior, makes Adam believe in turn that his fiancée has started an affair with the still rather handsome prince. Marie Louise, who presents herself to Adam as Marie, a simple but sweet country girl, is quite happy with this temporary confusion: it gives her a chance to sound out her husband, a man-about-town and old-school charmer, and find out how seriously he takes marital fidelity. Soon the carousel of misunderstandings and assumptions, jealousy and irritation grows extraordinary in scale, leaving the princess with her hands full as she tries to set things straight so that the bird seller finds his way back to Christel—and so that she and her husband, to whom she once again draws close in the guise of a dancer, can become as devoted to each other as ever.