Vita-Film

One of the first epic films made in Austria, as in some of the similar Cecil B De Mille entries, a fusion of a biblical story with a modern update.

Three men fall in love with a woman from a window photograph. When they find her living as a recluse in an isolated Hungarian mansion, they decide against a visit because she wouldn't live up to their idealized images of her.

Max suffers from drunkenness, but gets serious after he falls for the daughter of a circus director - who forbids her romance with an outsider.

Elder brother, Adam Andinnian, is secretly married to Rose Turner. To defend her from a man who is stalking her and making lecherous advances, Adam shoots him and is sentenced to life in prison in a penal colony. Adam's mother, who favors him, conspires to help him escape the penal colony. The escape is a failure, resulting in a violent shootout where Adam, a prison guard, and another prisoner all perish. One body is never recovered, but the men are presumed dead. Younger brother, Karl, is engaged to Lucy Cleeves, but her snobbish parents deem him unsuitable. The narrative follows the interweaving lives and the long-term consequences of Adam's imprisonment and the failed escape attempt.

Some background and promotional scenes shot for Vita-Film Studios at the Rosenhügel studios in the early 1920s.

Some promotional footage shot for "Max, der Zirkuskönig".