Austria, Bad Ischl: The young Princess Christine and the Imperial Count of Hohenegg are supposed to meet at the annual Imperial Ball before their planned engagement. But things turn out differently than expected: Christine falls in love with Count Baranyi, and her future husband falls in love with the seamstress Franzi, who is mistaken for a countess at the wrong moment...

Marie, a cashier at the Viennese Grottenbahn (Grave Railway) Zum Walfisch, and Baron Christian von B. fall in love, but the dancer Valette, who always wears a mask over her face, interferes in their relationship. Christian eventually follows Valette to Paris. When he tears the golden mask from her face, he is shocked to discover that Valette is disfigured by an illness. He returns to Vienna to die...

a movie by Karl Leiter