Was Frauen träumen (1933)

The elegant singer Rina Korff is a crafty thief. The young dancer has already traveled all over Europe, and before or after her performances she is repeatedly drawn as if by magic into select jewelry shops, where she regularly helps herself to things without getting caught. After she has once again paid one of these uninvited visits—and this time a particularly beautiful gemstone is missing—a gentleman who looks very wealthy enters the shop and introduces himself as Levassor. He is quite willing to pay for the loss. He claims that the lady in question merely picked out something for herself and already took it with her—something he, Levassor, had promised her as a gift and would now pay for. This odd arrangement, which Levassor has used after each of Rina’s thefts so that none of the jewelers has ever actually suffered a loss, does not help the young woman this time, because the jeweler has already alerted the police. Detectives Füssli and Kleinsilber arrive, determined to catch the thief. A perfumed glove left behind in the jewelry shop puts the two detectives on Rina’s trail. Walter König, an employee at a perfumery with an exceptionally keen nose, identifies the exclusive scent on the glove. It is sold at his shop under the name “What Women Dream Of.” The customer who bought it would be staying at the elegant Atlantic Hotel. After giving the detectives the crucial tip, König has second thoughts: he has begun to take an interest in the thieving woman and even wants to help Rina, who performs as a dancer in the hotel’s pavilion, escape. Rina Korff is receptive to the cultivated young perfumer’s advances and lets him put her on the next train leaving the city. König is all the more astonished when, a little later, he finds Rina in his own apartment. After stealing his front-door key, the thief has moved in uninvited. If that were not audacious enough, the plan proves unwise for another reason: König’s next-door neighbor happens to be Detective Inspector Otto Füssli. Rina tells Walter that she is not simply an ordinary thief but suffers from kleptomania. She claims that she would very much like to be cured of this affliction. König contacts Rina’s great benefactor, Levassor, who turns out to be a certain John Constaninescu, a consummate con man. König makes him an offer: if Walter can free the young woman from her compulsion to go on stealing sprees, Constantinescu must let her go; otherwise, Walter will send Rina back to Constantinescu. Levassor / Constantinescu, who is determined to get his rival out of the way because he wants Rina all to himself, then tries to tempt Rina into stealing again in the future. But in the end, love triumphs over her sticky fingers. König tips off the police, and the con man is arrested. Now the young couple can begin a future together.