Wenn die Glocken hell erklingen (1959)

The beautiful Susanne Weiden arrives for a visit at the estate of Count von Warthenberg and his daughter Hanna. Hanna quickly sees through what the Count still wants to keep from his daughter: he and Susanne are in love and on the verge of getting engaged. Hanna is in love too, but she sees Mario, a singer who lives in Vienna, only every summer. He is a tutor to the Vienna Boys’ Choir, whose members go to a summer camp in the mountains each year. This year, however, there is something unusual: among the boys is Michael, the son of Warthenberg’s disowned daughter, Maria. She fell in love with Warthenberg’s chauffeur and married him against her father’s wishes. Warthenberg disowned her, and she has lived in Vienna for the past 13 years. Hanna learns Michael’s identity from Mario; everyone calls him Meckie. Despite her careful attempts, she fails to bring grandfather and grandson together. Chance comes to her aid: Michael has grown attached to a stray dog, but it runs off from him in the woods. Before the Count can shoot the dog for poaching, Michael throws himself in front of it to protect it, impressing Count von Warthenberg with his courage. He meets Michael, who goes by “Meckie,” and soon takes the boy into his heart. The two ride out together, go fishing, and go hunting. When complications arise during a foal’s birth, Michael fetches the Count from a party that his beloved Susanne has organized with her friends. Susanne realizes that the Count has taken Michael into his heart and that the boy could jeopardize their relationship, so she persuades the Count to go with her to Salzburg. Michael rides after their car but falls from his horse. His ankle is badly bruised, so he has to rest in bed at the Count’s manor house. While there, he overhears an argument between the Count and Susanne. She gives her beloved an ultimatum: the boy or her. When Michael tries to sneak out of the building, his absence is quickly noticed, and a medallion bearing the Count’s coat of arms is found among the belongings he has left behind. Susanne seizes the opportunity to discredit Michael to the Count as a thief. In fact, Michal was given the medallion by his mother, and now, deeply hurt, he runs off into the woods with his dog. Meanwhile, Hanna and Mario have informed Michael’s mother, Maria, about her son’s accident and picked her up from the train station. As they are still driving her to the estate, the maid Alma is so appalled by Susanne’s disparaging remarks about Michael that she reveals his true parentage. The Count, who had shortly before wished that Michael were his son, now also welcomes his disowned daughter Maria with open arms. The search for Michael begins, involving the Vienna Boys’ Choir, Hanna, Maria, the Count, and Mario. In the end, however, it is Susanne—who has left the Count and is returning home—who spots Michael on a train and promptly parks her car on the tracks. Before Michael gets off, everyone else has also reached the train, and all ends happily: Michael learns that the Count is his grandfather, Maria is forgiven, and Hanna and Mario are allowed to become a couple too, since the Count does not want to repeat the mistake he made in his decision about Maria.