Geliebte Hochstaplerin (1961)

Berlin native Robert Bolle sneaks aboard an ocean liner as a stowaway. The ship is setting sail from Hamburg for New York. Also on board is his beloved, Barbara Shadwell, whom he wants to marry. However, at her mother’s insistence, she is supposed to marry David Ogden, the oatmeal millionaire. Barbara’s mother, Ceila Shadwell, is a syrup millionaire. The supposedly wealthy Martine Colombe is assigned to the cabin Robert has been secretly occupying, because her tourist-class cabin had been double-booked. Martine soon finds the man under her bed. Robert, in turn, realizes that Martine is no fine lady at all, but a fashion model who has stolen a designer’s latest collection and hopes to marry a millionaire in America. They come to an arrangement, since each knows the other’s secrets: she sleeps in the bed, and he under it. Martine sticks close to David Ogden, who is delighted when she appears at dinner in the same dress as his mother and, by doing so, stands up to her for the first time in her life. He falls in love with Martine, with increasingly crazed consequences: David loses his senses when he is in love. Since three minders are constantly around him, trying to prevent him from getting involved with Martine, a physical altercation soon breaks out. When David comes to believe that Martine really loves him for himself and not for his money, he gives away the family fortune to other passengers and is eventually locked away by his minders. Meanwhile, Martine has arranged a meeting between Robert and Barbara. Barbara quickly realizes that Robert and Martine are closer than she and Robert would ever be. Eventually, she pretends that she put Robert up as a prize in a poker game and lost him. She gives him the playing cards as a keepsake and leaves. Martine eventually realizes that she no longer really wants a millionaire. She crawls under the bed to Robert, and the two consider how Robert can go ashore in New York without being noticed, and what Barbara is supposed to do in the city. They decide to play cards, and Robert finds a note from Barbara in the deck: she has paid for a suite for the two of them on the crossing from New York to Hamburg, and wishes them both well and hopes they will love each other.