Die tödlichen Träume (1951)

Albert Winter, a philology student, spends his semester break in Bamberg, where he is pursuing art history studies. He rents a room at Schillerplatz from secondhand dealer Alexis Wilbrand, who promptly lets him the very room in which the poet E. T. A. Hoffmann once lived. In Wilbrand’s shop, Albert discovers a female statuette barely the size of his hand. Wilbrand dismisses it as junk, and Albert takes it to his room. The statuette bears a striking resemblance to the dealer’s daughter, Angelika. Strange things happen in the house at midnight. The figures in a stage model come to life and seem to begin performing Fouqué’s Undine. An ink drawing of a man in a top hat comes to life and introduces himself to Albert as E. T. A. Hoffmann himself. As Albert sinks into a drowsy state, Hoffmann tells him the “Deadly Dreams,” stories that reach back in part over centuries and in which Albert is always at the center of the action, in different roles. Fiction and Albert’s real experiences become mixed together, including his encounters with Alexis Wilbrand and with a mysterious girl he had seen the previous day in Bamberg Cathedral.