Kitty und die Weltkonferenz (1939)

A world economic conference is being held in Lugano. At the venue, the “Grand Hotel Eden,” final preparations are in full swing. Journalists and businesspeople are on the lookout for lucrative information. Kitty, a manicurist at the hotel, meets the journalist Piet Enthousen, with whom she secretly falls in love. He mistakes her for the private secretary of the English Minister for Economic Affairs, Sir Horace Ashlin. On the eve of the conference, she unknowingly makes a date with Sir Horace and, over dinner, also introduces herself to him as his own secretary. The deception is finally exposed to them both the next morning, when Sir Horace orders a manicure and Kitty appears in his room. After Sir Horace realizes that she is connected to the journalist Enthousen, he asks her to feed Enthousen false information about an oil agreement with the state of Coprador, in order to thwart the bond speculation of Irene Sorel and Viscount Tristan de Gavard. The plan works, and the two speculators’ deal falls through. Kitty and Piet fall out over the consequences of the failed deal for Piet. Only Sir Horace’s personal intervention at the end of the conference can ultimately bring the two back together.