Die Goldene Gans (1964)

The shoemaker’s apprentice Klaus and his brothers, Kunz and Franz, have inherited a small shoemaker’s workshop from their late father. Klaus, however, is the only one of the three who actually runs it. Kunz is too lazy to work, and Franz considers himself perpetually dogged by bad luck, so Kunz now calls him “Unlucky.” One day, the brothers go into the forest one after another to cut wood. Each of them encounters an old woman who asks them for something to eat and drink. Kunz and Franz refuse to share their provisions with the exhausted woman, and they promptly suffer the consequences. Before their eyes, the woman vanishes into thin air, and the next blow of their axes against a tree causes them pain. Klaus, by contrast, proves much more helpful and is rewarded with a goose whose feathers are made of gold. It later turns out that anyone who touches it gets stuck to it. The first to find this out are the two sisters, Lies and Gret—Lies cannot resist her greed, while the “know-it-all” Gret claims that golden geese that people get stuck to do not exist. As they continue on their way together, they come to the inn “The Refreshing Drink,” which belongs to Lies and Gret’s father. Gret had set out in the first place to look for her sister and warn her about a group of horsemen who had put up at the inn. When Klaus, Lies, and Gret arrive at the inn, they hear through an open window how the five horsemen, led by Prince “Troublemaker,” discuss a plan to kidnap the princess of the kingdom. To delay this for the time being, Klaus makes sure that Prince Troublemaker and his escort drink so much wine that they have to spend the night in the inn’s wine cellar, sleeping off their drunkenness. During the night, the innkeeper sneaks over to where Klaus, Lies, and Gret are sleeping to get one of the goose’s feathers. But, like his daughters, he gets stuck to it too. Klaus then comes up with the idea of visiting the princess, who has lost her laughter, since whoever makes the princess laugh is to marry her and rule over half the kingdom. The next day, on their way to the castle, they come across a group of musicians who are also being dragged along by the golden goose. The human chain grows ever longer, further increasing their hope of making the princess laugh. Meanwhile, new suitors keep arriving at the castle to try to make the princess laugh, including Count Ohnewitz and even Kunz and Franz, who had found a pair of dancing shoes in Klaus’s workshop and want to impress the princess with them. But she turns them all away. Soon afterward, Klaus arrives at the castle along with everyone stuck to the golden goose. The captain of the guard regards them as troublemakers and tries to turn them away, but Klaus refuses to back down and enters the castle. When the princess sees the human chain in the stairwell, she bursts into hearty laughter. Later, when she reminds her father of his promise, he claims that he can no longer remember it. Instead, he sets further tasks for anyone who wants to marry the princess. These tasks soon present themselves, as one of the guards rushes into the throne room and warns everyone that Prince Troublemaker is on his way to the castle. The king fears for his daughter and his treasures, but Klaus, with great skill, gets the chest with seven locks into the throne room. A short time later, the castle guard raises the alarm because Prince Troublemaker and his companions are attacking the castle. The latter are overcome in the castle courtyard, but Prince Troublemaker makes it as far as the throne room, where he and Klaus fight with swords over the princess. Klaus overpowers Troublemaker, demonstrates the magical power of the golden goose to intimidate him further, and finally drives him away. The king then realizes that Klaus has earned his respect and agrees to the marriage. As a reward for helping Klaus and the princess find happiness, the golden goose frees everyone who got stuck to it on the way to the castle, and Klaus and the princess open a celebration with music and dancing.