Die Dame in Schwarz (1928)

As a result of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, Irena Wolkowa is also stranded in the West. Penniless, she wanders aimlessly through a mild, rain-soaked summer night when she meets the young Julian Holt. They quickly take a liking to each other, and the young émigrée tells him the sad story of her life. Irena has to make ends meet in the West as a dance girl in a cheap variety theater, although she would not really need to. Irena claims that she is in fact the daughter of a missing prince who is presumed to have died amid the turmoil of the Revolution, and that her real name is Princess Nedelkoff. The late aristocrat was very wealthy, and Irena lays claim to his inheritance of $750,000, which he had managed to transfer to a bank in the West. But there is another woman who also claims to be Princess Nedelkoff and lays claim, on the basis of a forged will, to the money of the man presumed dead. Irena says this woman is an impostor. Julian believes her and promises to help Irena assert her claim. They do indeed succeed in exposing the false Nedelkoff, whose real name is Bennigsen, and helping Irena get what is rightfully hers.