Wenn die Abendglocken läuten (1930)

The lives of the villagers in an Alpine village are thrown into turmoil when a group of Gypsies arrives. The wheel of their wagon is broken and must be repaired before they can move on. The mayor is deeply suspicious of them and fears they will steal, so they are allowed to camp only outside the village. The village policeman is supposed to keep an eye on them for as long as they have to be tolerated, but he is quickly won over by the Gypsies’ charm. Hans, the mayor’s son and a blacksmith, offers to help repair the wagon. In the evenings, the village’s young men are drawn to the Gypsies’ campfire, where Saffy enchants them with a czardas. Hans and his brother Michl, a hunter, are impressed by her unusually erotic style of dancing. Saffy wants to make the mayor’s sons fall in love with her and set them against each other, thereby taking revenge for the way their father treats her people. Hans and Michl vie for Saffy and become rivals. To the dismay of Annerl, who is in love with him, Hans puts off repairing the wagon for as long as possible. When Hans’s Marientaler goes missing, suspicion immediately falls on the Gypsies. By mayoral decree, they are ordered to leave the area within twenty-four hours. After a theft at the Mosner landlady’s, the villagers accuse Saffy, but Hans defends her and gives her an alibi. He leaves with the Gypsies, but soon realizes that Saffy is interested only in Pietro, one of the Gypsies. More than a year later, Melchner regrets having driven his son away. While a folk festival is taking place, Hans returns to his home village as a vagabond. Annerl finds her beloved in the smithy, and they get together.