Annie Rosar Movies

World-renowned Austrian actor-singer Leo Slezak (Walter's dad) stars in this typical Viennese operetta. Slezak is cast as cab driver Leopold Weinzierl, a hidebound traditionalist who resists all forms of progress. When his daughter's sweetheart offers to buy the Weinzierl home as a potential auto-factory site, Leopold demands that the girl break off her romance, promising her hand to another suitor. To protect his property, Leopold mortgages the place to the man he's chosen as a son-in-law. But when this man proves to be a no-good rat, it is the other boyfriend who saves the day. The now-contrite Leopold celebrates his change of heart in song, just as he's celebrated every other momentous occasion in his life. The film's musical score was penned by Robert Stolz, whose previous successes included Two Hearts in Waltz Time (incidentally, the English-language title for Liebe in 3/4 Takt was Love in Waltz Time, indicating that Stolz knew a good thing when he saw it). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The World's in Love is one of several film versions of Franz Lehar's operetta Clo Clo. Marta Eggerth is cast as musical-comedy favorite Ilona Ratkay, who has made the mistake of hiring ambitious press agent Anton (Hans Moser). Figuring that any publicity is good publicity, Anton insists upon spreading rumors of Ilona's alleged sexual peccadilloes. Her career in tatters, our heroine wonders if anyone will ever truly fall in love with her. She doesn't have to wonder long -- not with handsome farmer Peter von Waldenau (Rolf Wanka). But even this moment of bliss is exploited by Anton, who plants a newspaper story claiming that Ilona is the illegitimate daughter of Peter's wealthy father! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Franciska "Francy" Gall was still delightfully in her "gamine" mode when she starred in Kleine Mutti (Little Mommy). The star plays a schoolgirl who runs into nothing but trouble when she finds an abandoned baby on the steps of an orphanage. Almost immediately, Gaal is presumed to be the mother of the child, which earns her instant dismissal from her school. Penniless, she takes a room in a fancy hotel, intending to beat the bill at the end of the week, giving her enough time to find a proper home for the baby. The hotel doctor, assuming Gaal is rich, chastises the girl for her "selfishness" in failing to care for the infant herself and forces her to leave with the kid in tow. Forced to take a job selling vacuum cleaners, our heroine runs into more problems at the home of a rich banker, who huffily assumes that she is his son's mistress?and on it goes until the happy ending, which comes as much of a relief to Gaal as to the audience. Kleine Mutti was directed by Herman Kosterlitz, who as "Henry Koster" directed several Deanna Durbin pictures in the late 1930s-early 1940s (many of which owed a great deal to Kosterlitz' earlier Francy Gaal vehicles). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Felix Bressart, later one of the most delightful members of the Ernst Lubitsch "stock company," plays the title character in the Austrian comedy Hirsekorn Greift Ein (Hirsekorn Does Something About It). It's a typical worm-turns affair, as a mild-mannered provincial actor ends up working as a chauffeur for a scatterbrained female novelist. Slapstick is the order of the day, except in the scenes involving heroine Charlotte Susa. Guiding the actors through their paces was Rudolf Bernauer, a stage actor-manager of vast experience. Critics in 1931 felt that Hirsekorn Greift Ein was too thin to be stretched to 90 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide