Die tolle Herzogin (1926)

Near Copenhagen, the wealthy Duke of Burnham throws a lavish party. Among the invited guests are Lord Neville and his married daughter, Lady Grace. Also present is the disreputable womanizer Count Las Valdas, who captivates the ladies—especially Lady Grace—with his dancing and his love of jazz music. Grace has become involved with the charmer, who turns out to be a villainous blackmailer and repeat offender. The count tries to pressure Grace with the love letters she had written to him. Duchess Gloria, Grace’s sister, learns about this and decides to take the unscrupulous nobleman to task. And so events are set in motion. The remarkable duchess, who had not known the count before, proves quite capable: she soon sees what a despicable type her little sister has fallen for. Count Las Valdas demands that Grace steal some of her father’s documents and let him, the blackmailer, make copies of them. They are important papers for a contract that Grace and Gloria’s father has concluded with a Russian petroleum company. Gloria confronts the vile blackmailer and demands that he return Grace’s love letters. He agrees, but only if Gloria takes Grace’s place and gives herself to him. When Las Valdas gets fresh, the remarkable duchess pulls out a revolver and fires. Someone else also shoots the villain from ambush, so at first it is unclear who brought down the blackmailing count. Las Valdas’s death does nothing to improve matters for Gloria or Grace; on the contrary, the letters are in the dead man’s apartment, where the investigating police will presumably find them very soon. That would put Lady Grace under the gravest suspicion as a possible perpetrator. To forestall this, the two sisters go together to the dead man’s apartment … but the letters have already disappeared. Have they been stolen in the meantime by a third person? Then the phone rings at Duchess Gloria’s. A voice says, “If you want your letters back, come to the Trocadero in Malmö.” The duchess does as instructed and appears the following evening at the packed entertainment venue. A waiter brings her cigarettes. Written on one of the cigarette holders is the mysterious instruction, “Private Room 6.” When she enters the room, the dead man’s former chauffeur is standing before Gloria and gives the duchess the love letters back. To explain this roundabout way of returning them, the man tells her that he had simply wanted to have a glass of champagne with a real lady for once. In sincere gratitude, Gloria sinks into the chauffeur’s arms. He also turns out to have been the judge and executioner of his former employer. He was the one who fired the fatal shot from ambush, killing the count because he was a man without character, a scoundrel. The remarkable duchess’s family honor is saved, and a tender bond has developed between her and the mysterious chauffeur, leading to a wedding at Burnham Castle. But before the altar, everything is revealed, and the supposed chauffeur turns out to be a true aristocrat: Herbert Rüdiger, Margrave of Solt-Rothenberg, formerly a cavalry captain in the Prince Eugene of Savoy Imperial and Royal Dragoon Regiment.