Die klugen Dinge (1973)

The young couple Vera and Peter are riding on their Schwalbe motor scooter when they suddenly find themselves in a fairy-tale land. They come across a shop called “Clever Things.” The shopkeeper is an old wizard who offers all kinds of magical objects, such as a talking mirror, a table that sets itself with food, an invisibility hat, seven-league boots, and a flute whose music makes everyone dance at once. The wizard doesn’t want money; he wants to pass the objects on to the people they are meant for, and chooses the mirror for Vera and the flute for Peter. Then other inhabitants of the fairy-tale land come into the shop: two poor tailors who can’t afford anything, and a wealthy noble family who would greedily like to take everything. The wizard has had enough of them and suddenly makes his shop disappear. The nobleman gathers up his “purchases” and gets into the carriage with his wife and daughter. He wants the flute too, so he tells two royal guards who happen to pass by that Peter stole it from him. Peter is arrested and thrown into a dungeon. Vera flies with the two tailors on a magic carpet to the king’s castle, because the mirror told her that Peter will be released if the king needs a flute player. The tailors dress in Oriental robes and pretend to be ambassadors from a distant kingdom where magical objects exist. To demonstrate a magic flute to the king, they ask him to release Peter from prison, since a real musician has to play it. Shortly afterward, the nobleman and his family also arrive to offer the king the magical objects from the shop for sale. So the king, queen, and crown prince host a feast for the nobleman and his family, at which he is supposed to demonstrate his wonders. But the demonstrations go wrong, partly because of a few tricks played by the two tailors and Vera, who has grabbed the invisibility hat and swapped it for another one. The magic flute also sounds terribly off-key because it is not being played by the right person. The king is therefore persuaded to release Peter. With his flute playing, Peter sets the entire court dancing in a whirl, allowing him to escape with Vera and the tailors. At the shop, they return the magical objects to the old wizard. The shop disappears, and Peter’s motor scooter appears in its place, allowing the two of them to return to their own world and get married the next day.