Die seltsamen Abenteuer des Herrn Fridolin B. (1948)

The painter Marlen Weber applies for permission to open a studio. Her application is rejected because, as an unmarried woman, she is not to be encouraged to do things such as draw nude men. On impulse, she marries a man she does not know, who passes himself off as Fridolin Biedermann, intending to divorce him immediately after the wedding. However, this proves impossible because the official responsible for divorces is on vacation, and his substitute does not get around to dealing with the case. The real Fridolin Biedermann, a tailor in a small village, wants to marry his fiancée, Elvira Sauer, but cannot because he is supposedly already married and has several legitimate and illegitimate children. Even the police officer who has known him for a long time becomes formal when he reads about Biedermann’s marriage and children in an official document, and arrests him. Meanwhile, the impostor Biedermann is also arrested, but his marriage to Marlen is not dissolved. Since Biedermann’s arrest is the first in his village in quite some time—the prison has meanwhile been used as a stable—the prisoner transport turns into a farce. The door of the wooden cart falls off, and Fridolin escapes. He goes to the police prefect, who in turn discovers that a certain Biedermann is still in prison. It turns out that some time earlier, the impostor Biedermann had stolen the real Biedermann’s papers and, under a false name, committed various crimes and fathered several children, among other things. An order is issued to have the real Biedermann recorded in the files as released from prison, but in the end the impostor is also set free. He flees. Although the facts are clear, the real Biedermann still cannot marry because, according to the records, he is still married. The real Biedermann tries to find the impostor, but instead encounters the impostor’s lover, who has five children and—because the impostor is on the run—now considers the real Biedermann her husband. Before long, he is overwhelmed by the task of raising the five children. Because the impostor has meanwhile faked his own death, which is entered into the records, the lover is now considered a widow. Marlen, too, is now listed as widowed. The real Biedermann still cannot marry, however, because officially he is no longer alive at all. Only when the prime minister grants an amnesty is the real Biedermann once again recorded as alive. As a result of being entered anew in the records, Biedermann is now considered a newborn, while at the same time being a father and husband several times over. He is not allowed to marry because marriage is permitted only from the recorded age of 21. Biedermann’s longtime fiancée, Elvira Sauer, has now had enough. She leaves Fridolin, who now intends to enter the criminal underworld. On the way, he meets Marlen, whom he had encountered once before while looking for the impostor Biedermann and whom he had then mistaken for a thief. Together they register at a hotel, pretending to be a married couple. Fridolin feels guilty about the lie, and, sure enough, the vice squad comes by to inspect them. They both show their identification: legally speaking, Fridolin really is married to Marlen, who was never able to obtain a divorce from the impostor Biedermann. The authorities, too, are satisfied with the state of the records: although Fridolin is only eight months old according to the files, the documents show that he is properly married.