Zwei in einem Auto (1932)

The petty-bourgeois chief accountant of a knitwear company, Mr. Broesecke, has won a modest but brand-new Hanomag car in a prize competition and wants to christen it at once with a long journey. His destination is Nice and the Côte d’Azur, but the somewhat elderly and not particularly attractive accountant is not quite wealthy enough to afford such a trip on his own. So he places an advertisement seeking a travelling companion who will share the travel costs (petrol). Someone does respond, but gives only the initials LK. Broesecke naturally assumes this must be a man, and has no idea that the person offering to travel with him is the pretty young Lisa Krüger. She earns her living as a junior employee in a department store and, in turn, has no idea what Mr. Broesecke looks like. They arrange to meet at the grand Carlton Hotel. Since Broesecke arrives early, he sits down at a table where a distinguished-looking gentleman in his prime is already seated. The gentleman is the wealthy Englishman Lord Kingsdale, who also owns a car, though a much more distinguished and luxurious one. The two men strike up a conversation, and Broesecke tells the British nobleman what he intends to do and why he has come there. When Lisa arrives and spots the agreed signal at the table, she asks a page to call out Kingsdale—the younger man, who appeals to her much more—hoping that he is her Mr. Broesecke. The Lord stands up and, in front of the young woman, who is just his type, takes on the part of the chief accountant with whom she is supposed to set off for Nice. Since Lord Kingsdale has no intention of clearing up the mistake—having quickly formed plans of his own involving Lisa, and wanting to get rid of Broesecke as an annoying rival as soon as possible—the wealthy Englishman sends Broesecke enough money under Lisa’s name for him to set off alone for sunny southern France. Kingsdale, now posing as Broesecke, fully embraces his new role as Lisa’s travelling companion to the Côte d’Azur. The two of them set off, and their journey goes very harmoniously, except that Lisa, acting as the pair’s financial planner, is terribly stingy, wanting to count every penny for the two of them, whom she assumes to be hard up. When all three travellers to Nice arrive at the elegant Riviera Hotel in their different vehicles, misunderstandings quickly arise: two Broeseckes have made reservations, and the reservation made by Kingsdale-as-Broesecke is, as one might expect, far more luxurious. The false Broesecke has reserved an entire suite. Since there can only be one Broesecke, suspicion immediately falls on the Lord as an impostor and swindler. The police arrive, and the events that follow soon lead to great confusion. In the end, however, everything is happily resolved, and the young department-store employee gets her aristocratic husband and is henceforth allowed to live in a castle.