Grock (1931)

Grock, a clown who is no longer very young, has performed in variety theaters all over the world for more than thirty years and has been so successful that he has amassed a considerable fortune. Now he has grown tired and really wants only to retire on the money he has earned through hard work, preferably with a young woman. He finds one in Bianca, though she is more interested in his money than in him. At first, however, Grock refuses to believe it. One morning at the breakfast table, Bianca draws his attention to a newspaper advertisement offering a villa on the Mediterranean, still under construction, to be auctioned off at far below its value. After a few detours, Grock does grant her request to buy it. He does not yet suspect that the property belonged to the aristocrat Count Ospiri, who has since fallen into poverty. Nor does he know that Ospiri is Bianca’s former lover, who ruined himself for her. Whether Bianca really wants to help the Count is another matter. But when Grock and Ospiri meet, they take to each other at once. Grock therefore takes the Count along to the grand farewell performance that is still to come—the last of his career. The response is enormous: bouquets pile up outside the dressing rooms of Grock and his partner, Max van Embden. Their admirers celebrate the two men enthusiastically. When Grock and Bianca move into the villa on the Mediterranean, their first misunderstanding arises immediately. To Bianca’s displeasure, Grock greets the servants there as if they were friends. The splendidly furnished rooms delight Grock, but they also lead him to slip back into his old clowning habits. The servants find this very amusing, but Bianca’s anger at such behavior is plain to see. She considers the way Grock acts unacceptable and tells him to his face that his behavior is outrageous and that he will always remain a clown. Grock calmly replies that he will never be a gentleman. It therefore seems only natural to him to pitch in everywhere around the villa and help the gardener, too. When Grock and Bianca are invited to tea, Grock turns up in whatever clothes he happens to be wearing, grabs a piece of cake as he passes, tosses it into the air, then catches it in his mouth. Bianca cannot put up with this kind of behavior. And so, as was bound to happen, when the Count visits the villa, he and Bianca resume their affair behind Grock’s back. Months pass, until a traveling circus goes by the villa. Grock spots some old colleagues, rushes out of the house, and invites the whole troupe into the grand villa. A table has just been laid for highly aristocratic guests, and now silly Augustes, dwarfs, fire-eaters, and other circus performers make themselves comfortable around it and enjoy the lavish spread—in other words, a gargantuan feast gets underway. Then the double doors open, and the expected guests appear. The aristocrats can hardly believe their eyes and are, so to speak, turned to pillars of salt. For Bianca, this is the final straw, and she flees for good, leaving with the Count. Grock, meanwhile, though he has been betrayed, feels a weight lift from his shoulders. At last, the bourgeois life imposed on him is over and he is free again. Then his partner Max arrives and presents Grock with a splendid offer from a world-class variety theater. Grock accepts, knowing that the theaters have been left empty ever since he stopped performing. And at last the famous Grock routine rings out again, and the audience thanks him with a standing ovation.