Wir bitten zum Tanz (1941)

Karl Hofeneder owns a renowned dance school in Vienna, where the daughters and sons of prominent families take lessons. One day, Hofeneder learns that Georges Roublé has opened a dance school in the same district and is competing with him. Twenty-two years earlier, Roublé and Hofeneder, who were friends at the time, had both been in love with the same woman. Hofeneder had lost out and has resented Roublé ever since. Roublé’s daughter, Sylvia, who is not allowed to dance at her father’s school because of her poor academic performance, secretly takes lessons from Hofeneder, who does not know who Sylvia is. After Sylvia happens to meet the wealthy Alexander Hartenau on the street by accident, just as he is running away from an arranged engagement, Hartenau—disguised as his own valet—also enrolls at Hofeneder’s dance school so he can get to know Sylvia better. Roublé invites Hofeneder to his costume party, “So Vienna Dances.” Before going to the event, Hofeneder accidentally locks Sylvia and Xandl inside the school premises as he leaves his own dance school. At the costume party, Roublé makes peace with the reluctant Hofeneder. In the middle of the night, Hofeneder persuades the already considerably tipsy guests to come with him to his dance school. There, the group is surprised to find Sylvia and Xandl. Roublé rages at what he believes is Hofeneder’s despicable behavior; he assumes Hofeneder deliberately arranged for the two young people to be together. Hofeneder, for his part, accuses Roublé of deliberately foisting his daughter on him in order to discredit his dance school. When Roublé wants to send Sylvia to boarding school, she flees to Hofeneder’s apartment and begs him to find Xandl, which Hofeneder reluctantly does. Xandl is once again supposed to get engaged against his will. Hofeneder and the elderly Count Hartenau have a confrontation, during which Hofeneder tries to prevent Xandl’s engagement. When Xandl hears about this, however, he leaves the celebration with the consent of the woman intended for him and goes to Hofeneder’s apartment, where he finds Sylvia alone. By then, Hofeneder has gone to see the desperate Roublé, who does not know where his daughter is. The two go to Hofeneder’s apartment, where the misunderstanding is cleared up and Xandl asks for Sylvia’s hand in marriage. The scandal is thereby averted; from then on, Roublé and Hofeneder run a dance school together, and Sylvia and Xandl’s engagement is announced at a grand ball.