Lausbubengeschichten (1964)

The film begins with a framing story: In Bavaria in 1911, a Catholic priest and religious instructor confiscates Ludwig Thoma’s book *Lausbubengeschichten* from one of his pupils during class because it is on the school’s banned-books list. This does not stop the clergyman from reading the book himself at the rectory and laughing heartily at the stories in it. In the evening, he reads aloud from it to his housekeeper: At the time of the death of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, around 1886, the young rascal Ludwig Thoma keeps his fictional Upper Bavarian hometown of Gamsting on tenterhooks with his pranks, much to the dismay of his mother, Therese. He drives pompous Prussians such as Privy Councillor Bischof, the sanctimonious priest and religious instructor Falkenberg, nicknamed “Kindlein,” the self-proclaimed war hero, retired Captain Semmelmaier, and nagging relatives such as Aunt Frieda to despair. He finds understanding, really, only with his godfather, state parliamentarian Josef Filser, and his friend Franz Reiser, whom he brings together with his cousin Cora—and for this, in his dreams, he is decorated as a hero.