Bruni Löbel
A TV special about the christmas celebrations of the most popular TV characters in the ZDF at that time.
Timm Thaler is a 1979 children's television miniseries based on the 1962 children's novel by German writer James Krüss. The series originally aired in Germany as the first Christmas series on German national broadcaster ZDF. In 1988, the series was acquired for transmission in the United Kingdom by the BBC. The English version was produced by Angela Beeching, with script by Nel Romano, and retitled The Legend of Tim Tyler. It aired during Children's BBC in the weekday afternoons. The screenplay was written by Justus Pfaue and Peter M. Thouet and differs somewhat from the original novel. Directed by Sigi Rothemund, the series became a hit in Germany and made then 14-year-old Tommi Ohrner, in the lead role of Timm Thaler, a popular teen idol of the era. The role of the Baron was played by Horst Frank.
The series, based on the novel by German author James Krüss, tells the story of Timm, the boy who traded in his infectious laugh for the ability to win any bet. The man who did the devilish deal with Timm is wealthy businessman Baron de Lefouet, who is even more successful in business now that he has Timm's engaging laugh to win him friends. Timm, on the other hand, soon realizes that life is not the same without the ability to laugh, and he sets out to find the evil Baron and try to regain the ability to laugh.
One day the animals become too colorful: war is constantly going on among the people. When Alois, the lion, learns that the 365th Peace Conference has just failed, the animals decide that it is high time to intervene: they call their own "animal" peace conference. With much courage and even more imagination, they develop a plan so that Frides can finally prevail among the people of the world ...
Supported avidly by his mother and more reluctantly at first by his father, a working-class Austrian boy joins the Vienna Choirboys, where he proves to be unusually talented. The standard initiation ordeals which new boys must endure at the hands of their seniors are intensified in his case because he has aroused the jealousy of Peter, the head chorister, by singing a solo which Peter had long sung himself. The fact is that Peter's voice is breaking, and with a broken voice often comes a broken heart. But, encouraged by the director and all the boys, Peter begins to develop in a new role as composer and conductor.
The teacher Dorothee Durand, young and single, travels from England to the picturesque south of France to find the remaining remnants of her family. Her search takes her to Nimes, where she meets the likewise single Marius, a hotelier, who immediately falls in love with the beautiful woman. And so it turns out that after traveling through half of France, Dorothy not only finds her relatives, but also ...
Complications ensue when a U.S. diplomat discovers that he has a baby on his hands and an undercover gal in his arms.
The widowed government councilor Dr. Hans Neumeister is overwhelmed with raising his four children and running the household. Therefore, he is dependent on domestic help. His bad luck is that it doesn't last long because they quickly feel annoyed by the children's temperament and imagination. When a woman quit again, he decides to try a job advertisement. But the children are also considering how to help their father. Together they formulate a newspaper advertisement in which they portray not only their father but also themselves in the most beautiful colors. After a few failures, Susanne Meissner, a young, elegant photo model, is still a success. Susanne has been tired of her job for some time and is worried about her future. Hans Neumeister, however, considers the lady to be an applicant for his job advertisement. So it happens that the two talk past each other...
The bailiff Engel is believed to be an heir to the millions via a fictitious newspaper advertisement. It is said to have a mink farm. Your debtors mean my nun that as a millionaire you can pay the debts. Some dowry hunters have seen it on them too. Paulchen, who shows the ad, has in Ms. Engel and in the end she also has a couple.
An unemployed engineer who does not want his fiancee to protect him has accidentally insulted his future boss, unknown and for no reason. From this meager idea, a stupidly rolled-out confusion with pop song in a Mexico bar develops.
"Gems" - Embedded in a frame story, the film shows excerpts from 18 entertainment films of the time, among others, "The Gypsy Baron", "The Three Codonas", "La Habanera", "Viennese Blood", "Sophienlund", and "Mask in Blue".
The moral is simple: keep your mouth shut, especially when you're working during the wartime in a factory, which produces racing cars only, or someone can (or even must) get murdered. Not a good movie, not a bad either. The ending is abrupt and artificial, which seems to be a common plague of Third Reich's crime movies. Gustav Fröhlich could never get rid of his silent era mannerisms and overacting. But on the other side, this film is not boring and has to offer some decent plot turns and acting.
The Termoehlens belong to the old farming class in Flanders. Their estate does well and their flax is the best far and wide. And as is the custom, old Termoehlen is like a ruler over his family, the servants and the maidens. Even his son Ludwig, who has just returned from agricultural school with all his ideas on how to improve the farm, doesn’t stand a chance. When Ludwig falls in love with the maiden Rieneke – known as Schellebelle – his father become a despotic enemy.
The keywords for this film are comradeship and trust among the youth of a small village on the Baltic which is firmly under the control of an innkeeper, Ottokar Waschke. Waschke owns the only tugboat in town, which the town's fishermen, who make up the majority of the employed, need to transport their catch. So he forces them to sell their fish for a pittance, which Waschke then re-sells at an enormous profit. In the meantime, a big-city teacher, Helmut Grundel, comes to the village and discovers Waschke's little game. Grundel wants to form a collective, so that the fishermen can become independent from Waschke and this makes Waschke into a dangerous enemy. When the young Heini, son of a dune-patrolman, discovers that canisters of liquour are being smuggled into Pommern under Waschke's watchful eye, Waschke threatens Heini, that he'll turn his father into the police, with the baseless accusation that daddy is behind the smuggling operation.
