The man who broke the jug, the judge, is trying a case who determine who broke the jug. Long before the evidence becomes conclusive against the suspects, it becomes apparent that the blustering and bullying - and naive - village judge is the guilty one.
Der Herrscher (The Sovereign) was based on Before Sunset, a play by Gerhart Hauptmann. The great Emil Jannings stars as Mathias Clausen, a self-made businessman who is forced to do a great deal of soul-searching when his wife unexpectedly dies. Determining to start life anew, he falls in love with his secretary Inken (Marianne Hoppe) and impulsively takes a vacation to Italy. Clausen's selfish grown children, not wishing to share their father's affections -- nor his money -- with his new wife-to-be, go to court demanding that Clausen be declared mentally incompetent. Upon finding this out, Clausen flies into a rage, leaving the audience to wonder whether or not he really as gone off his trolley. Der Herrscher was directed by Veit Harlan, more famous (or notorious) for his viciously anti-Semitic Jud Suess (1940).
The famous tightrope artist Truxa is drinking at the Artisan bar in New York. He meets a young man, Husen, and gives him his stage name Truxa. He is to take the real Truxa's place at a circus show in Wintergarten, Berlin.
