Schloß Hubertus (1973)

After a year at boarding school in a convent, Kitty, the count’s daughter, returns to Hubertus Castle to her father, Count Egge. But, as always, he is away hunting, leaving Kitty only the company of Aunt Gundula, who diligently watches over her niece’s virtue. Even when the two set out to meet the count, are caught in a thunderstorm, and are rescued by the count’s gamekeeper Franz and the painter Hans, Gundula thinks only of fleeing back to the castle. Kitty, who has taken a liking to the painter, lets him paint her portrait the next day. The following day—Count Egge is still on the trail of a fine buck and, despite intending to return to the castle, keeps heading back up the mountain—Kitty’s brothers also arrive. Willy is an ensign and is secretly seeing a village girl; Robert is a cavalry lieutenant, full of class prejudice, constantly in gambling debt, and sees his father only as a plentiful source of money; and Tassilo is a lawyer who plans to marry the opera singer Anna Herwegh. All three of their life choices are foreign to their father, who lives only for the hunt. Since their father has not come down from the mountain for several days, the brothers go to join him for a day’s hunting. Count Egge assigns them hunting grounds where hardly any game passes. Yet when Tassilo shoots a red deer, it turns out that the fatal bullet did not come from Tassilo’s rifle, but from that of his assistant, Franz. Egge dismisses Franz, acting exactly as the count’s gamekeeper Schipper wants. Schipper was once a poacher and used to hunt with the villager Lenz. Back then, both men were caught by the gamekeeper Hornegger, Franz’s father. They both shot at him, and Hornegger died. Neither of them knows whose shot was fatal. While Lenz tries to drown his guilt in alcohol—which is all the harder because his sister Mali is involved with Franz—Schipper has insinuated himself into the count’s service in order to ruin Franz, Hornegger’s son, and get him out of the way. Egge is increasingly troubled by health problems, including pain in his knee. His family problems also weigh on him. When he hears that his son Tassilo wants to marry a singer, he disowns him. Because Robert is bleeding him dry and his debts keep mounting, he also disowns Robert. Willy, whom he regards as his only “successful” son, dies after falling from a window while serenading a woman. At Willy’s funeral, the brothers and Kitty meet again. The count begins to have a change of heart and takes Franz back into his service. On their first hunting trip, they discover an eagle’s nest, which Egge wants to raid. Since it is very high up, he has wooden ladders made in the village so he can climb the roughly 60-meter-high cliff. Although Franz advises him against it, Egge begins the climb alone. An adult eagle attacks him as it tries to defend the nest, and he is injured. But he does not abandon the climb. When he reaches the nest, he gets caught in a cloud of eagle droppings—the caustic dust blinds him. Meanwhile, Tassilo has been visited in Munich by one of his brother Robert’s fellow officers. Robert has run up enormous gambling debts. Tassilo promises to pay them. When he hurries to Robert to tell him, Robert has just killed himself. Only Kitty has a brief spell of happiness: With Gundula’s permission, she visits the painter Hans, who has just received a scholarship to travel to Rome, making him at least a respectable marriage prospect. Only when she returns to Hubertus Castle does Kitty learn that her father is gravely injured. Besides his blindness, the main problem is the wounds he suffered in the eagle’s attacks, which have become septic. Tassilo also comes to his father’s bedside. Egge forgives him and also gives his approval to Kitty’s beloved, then dies. Lenz has become a poacher again because his little niece is seriously ill. He believes Schipper is still his old accomplice and tells him where he plans to poach. Schipper, in turn, rushes to Franz and claims to have overheard two poachers, one of whom said he had killed Franz’s father. Franz hurries up the mountain and catches Lenz. As he is about to take him into custody, Schipper appears and shoots Lenz, but is himself fatally hit by Lenz’s bullet. In his final moments, Schipper reveals to Franz that he was the one who killed his father. The bodies of Lenz and Schipper are carried down from the mountain. Lenz’s sister Mali is devastated by her brother’s death. Franz takes her in his arms and comforts her: better days will come for them, too.