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Germany was losing the war, its cities were being bombed to smithereens, so it's easy to see why Goebbels felt the need for quality escapist entertainment like this gentle, funny school comedy.

Heinz Ruhmann plays a successful writer who was educated by tutors and never attended school, and who decides to return to his hometown disguised as a pupil to find out what he missed. What ensues is a lot of sweet-natured tomfoolery, with lots of tricks played on the teachers - something which nearly got the film banned because of its supposedly 'anti-authoritarian' tendencies.

There's no real message except that 'schooldays are the best days of your lives', and perhaps that's its secret - for it remains among the most popular of all film comedies in Germany and is cult viewing around Christmas time. Ruhmann is in his element in this film, but particular mention should go to the wonderful Erich Ponto as the eccentric chemistry teacher, who is quite best thing in the film.

So Linus Larrabee falls for the chauffeur's daughter? No big surprise there. Who wouldn't fall for Audrey Hepburn in this exceptional romantic comedy? She was never less than a magnetic screen presence, but here she's so heartbreakingly beautiful I defy anyone to resist her charms, even if they don't like the rom-com genre and are too cynical to enjoy the storyline, which is of course basically a warmed-over Cinderella. The moment where she emerges at the Long Island railroad station every inch the sophisticated parisienne is the most heart-warming cinematic makeover since Bette Davis walked down the gangplank of that cruise ship in Now, Voyager, and she's simply stunning in the party scene in the long Givenchy frock - offhand I can only think of Rita Hayworth in Gilda or Ava Gardner as equally iconic screen figures. Bogart is a little miscast, but it works nonetheless. The ending is lovely. And the dialogue - so often a Wilder strong point - simply sparkles.

I'm a massive Billy Wilder fan but count this as a rare mis-fire from one of Hollywood's greatest directors. It has the odd good one-liner, but the political satire is crude, the portrait of the Germans is so stereotypical it would get prosecuted under race hate laws these days and the pace is overly furious, so that you're left gasping for breath at the sheer pace of it all halfway through the film. Worse, it has little charm - Liselotte Pulver as the secretary is great, as are one or two of the German supporting cast, but Cagney is a long way off his best here and the film would have been redeemed if instead of Cagney Jack Lemmon had taken the lead - because Lemmon always had charm, even when he was barking his lines - see him in Avanti! if you don't believe me. This movie had the singular misfortune to be overtaken by historical events, as the slightly uncomfortable spoken prologue reveals: its comedy of east-west tension looked a little tasteless when the Soviets built the Berlin Wall between the start of shooting and its release in the cinemas. My least favourite Wilder movie, by a considerable margin.

For me, Wilder is more interesting when he keeps his hard boiled and cynical side at least in check and allows his softer side to show - in many of his best films it's the balance between the romance and cynicism that makes the movie work. I watched this a few nights after watching One, Two, Three - which I hated - and I was enchanted by it. Sure, an obviously ageing and, I believe ill Gary Cooper is not the obvious love match - the age gap makes the match a little creepy - and yet Cooper adds pathos as the playboy who, if he didn't lose it to Audrey, would surely be on the brink of losing it anyway. It makes for an entirely different, and much more interesting, movie than if the obvious choice of Cary Grant had been cast. Cooper, after all, had been the biggest movie star (and the most handsome) in the world in his youth, but was looking haggard and old beyond his years by the time he appeared in this. Hepburn, of course, is simply bewitching and enchanting, as she was in all but the biggest turkeys (even she fails to light up the tedious Paris When it Sizzles). The parallels with Sabrina Fair are obvious, and so is the charm of this unlikely but lovely tale.

Of course it's a vehicle for Dietrich, but what makes this early Hollywood Dietrich-Sternberg outing fascinating is its sensuality. It simply reeks of sex: as when a sexually provocative, confident Dietrich in a tux kisses a girl, in its depiction of Dietrich's obsession with the Gary Cooper character and perhaps above all in the way the film treats Cooper - the most beautiful man in Hollywood at the time - almost as an inanimate sex object. So many movies over the years have given their female leads little to do but look gorgeous, but here it's Cooper who plays second fiddle, and reminds modern viewers that good looks were not invented by Brad Pitt. To quote the song, he's simply 'super duper' here. And Dietrich, of course, is simply incomparable: she has that mixture of upfront toughness and unspoken vulnerability that made her utterly watchable throughout her long screen career.

What better setting for a cynical, quick fire comedy than the world of newspapers? This wonderful screwball comedy holds your attention from the minute the opening credits roll - the New York setting ensures it's great to look at and it has perhaps the snappiest comic dialogue ever written for a German film. Harvey and Fritsch - the 'dream couple' of 1930s German cinema - are at their peak, especially the English-born Lilian Harvey, who is just utterly adorable here. That said, the lead actors face stiff competition from the superb supporting cast members, and Peter Kreuder's music is memorable too - from the mocking yet dreamily romantic, swing-tinged 'Fraulein Niemand' ("Miss Nobody") to the nonsense song Ich Wollt' ich Waer ein Huhn - "I wish I were a chicken" - which Nazi ideologues did NOT approve of. Gluckskinder is often referred to as a remake of It Happened One Night, but while there are close parallels in some areas of the plot, it is worth seeing on its own merits. A really charming, Capra-esquire film, proof of what the German film industry could do - even after the Nazis came to power -when it was allowed to.

I went to see this at the cinema in Vienna, fully expecting to hate it...after all it was directed by one of cinematic history's all-time villains, Veit Harlan, who directed the notoriously antisemitic drama Jud Suss.

And yet...I found myself drawn into the story in spite of myself, and in spite of the fact that Kristina Soderbaum (Harlan's wife) lacks charisma, a charge which can't be laid at the door of her co-star, Carl Raddatz, who is one of those ugly-but-sexy men, and has a distinct screen presence.

The reason? The film is so poetic, so haunting, that even though its melodramatic tale is much-ado-about-nothing in some ways, it burrows beneath your defences. It is' at times beautiful to look at, and the score is often overpoweringly evocative. Proof that in artistic terms at least, even villains are not necessarily two-dimensional.

La Habanera is an early Sirk movie to be sure, and one made in Nazi Germany, but so much of his trademark style is already evident here that it's a fascinating film to watch.

Sirk was no Nazi, but upfront it nevertheless ticks certain ideological boxes to please its Nazi masters: the Swedish heroine is rescued by a Swedish hero and returns from sultry, corrupt Puerto Rico to purer than pure Sweden at the end of the film.

But not so fast...the film is a study in seduction, and the erotic and romantic allure of Puerto Rico is evident from beginning to end, like a heady perfume or draft of opium. Ferdinand Marian's Don Pedro de Avila is, at least at the start, a profoundly erotic figure, far more so than the rather pallid Swedish doctor who is his rival. And Leander herself, it seems, is not sure of her choice to return home, even at the end of the film. As the ship pulls away from the dock and the haunting sound of La Habanera plays one more time, Zara Leander sighs a deeply erotic sigh, signalling the continuing power the island has over her.

Like all the best melodramas, it has things both ways in ideological terms, so you can choose to read the film how you will. The plot is pretty much a potboiler, but it's made with such care and panache that the resultant film is immensely impressive despite the stupid story. And Zarah Leander lights up the screen with that particular brand of tender, sultry melancholy she made her own.

Heinz Ruehmann was the most beloved screen star of the 20th century in Germany and remains the very embodiment of the mythical 'little man' in German culture. There's nothing slight about his directing talent, however, as displayed in this tender and moving romance about a couple who find each other one New Year's Eve, lose each other and struggle for years to find each other again. Beautifully scripted, shot and acted, with fine performances from all the principal players and sweetly evocative music by Ruehmann's favourite screen composer Werner Bochmann. Erich Ponto puts in a wonderfully deadpan performance as the butler Barnabas and Susanne Von Almassy is charming as the big-hearted Vera, but the film belongs above all to female lead Hertha Feiler, who was also Ruehmann's wife. It's just a pity that Ruehmann - who starred in so many films, from the 1920s through to the 1990s - directed only five.

The most sassy of all the Marika Rokk musicals made during the Third Reich is this, premiered in the fateful summer of 1939. It wears its American influences on its sleeve, and in some respects was the last of its kind, for though Rokk danced on through the war the music never again had that big band swing sound in quite the same way - in the 1940s American films were no longer shown on German cinema screens (which they had been pretty much throughout the 1930s) and later the Nazis progressively clamped down on swing and jazz. The concluding production number in this film, 'Musik, Musik, Musik' sounds quite astonishingly American. The look of the film is glossy and international too: the set for Musik, Musik, Musik is the sort of abstract art deco more usually associated with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the theatre is a Bauhaus dream and Rokk tap dances her way onto a row of glitter-encrusted grand pianos, which rise through the stage floor to meet her. Die Frau Meiner Traume may be more lavish, but this is more consistently entertaining, its simple plot - chorus girl wants to make it to the top - one of the universal themes of movie musicals. You'd struggle to find any kind of Nazi influence in this film: this was the sort of big-budget glossy entertainment film Goebbels had made in order to reassure ordinary Germans they were still living in a 'normal' country.

Heinz Ruehmann had several decades of comedy experience to draw on by the time he appeared in this mid-1950s filming of the famous stage play, and it shows, for he is masterly here both as the urbane diplomat Otto and his drag alter-ego 'Auntie Lottie', who arrives at his brother's roof garden party just in time to act as a chaperon to the two attractive young Swedish girls who are on the point of leaving. Paul Hoerbiger is excellent as an aged Lothario chasing 'Auntie Lottie' around the roof, while the REAL auntie - played by Ruehmann's real-life wife, the astonishingly beautiful Herta Feiler - turns up to add to the mayhem, and smells a rat when she recognizes 'Auntie Lottie's dress as her own. Ruehmann's wonderfully camp mambo number is undoubtedly the highlight, but there's plenty of period charm on offer too.

Watching Willi Forst's wonderful screwball comedy - released at the time of the Berlin Olympics in 1936 - it's almost possible to imagine a 1930s Germany in which Nazism never happened. This is an elegant, fast-paced film drawing on some of the classiest comedy talent Germany had to offer at the time, and self-consciously modern, with its cocktails, ocean liners, racing car drivers and drop-dead art deco interiors. Anton Walbrook is suitably Errol Flynn-like as the handsome lady killer Phillip, while Heinz Ruehmann is for once overshadowed by his co-stars. It's the women who steal the show here, including the excellent Renate Mueller, who also starred in Viktor, Viktoria and habitually played modern, emancipated types. But the film belongs even more to Hilde Hildebrandt as the vampish Aimee, who better than anyone else in this ensemble piece knows how to camp it up to the max when necessary. The only mystery is why this film didn't come to the attention of Hollywood - and why Willi Forst's evident talent wasn't promptly snapped up by the US.

Even at the height of the Third Reich, the name of Willi Forst - star and director of this literary adaptation - stood for a certain ironic detachment and class, and this witty, pacey film doesn't disappoint. The story of how a journalist claws his way to the top while bedding a whole row of society ladies might, one would have thought, have struck a resonance with Goebbels, who as film minister had the opportunity to ban it if he wished - but apparently he wasn't blessed with sufficient self-consciousness to recognise the implied dig. Even if its contemporary satirical intent is perhaps overstated, the film is a real pleasure to watch - most notably for poor Lizzi Waldmueller, who was killed by shellfire towards the end of World War Two and who here sings the film's catchy theme 'You have luck with the girls, Bel Ami' surrounded by a bevy of cartwheeling can-can dancers. Good too (as always) is Hilde Hildebrandt as one of Duroy's society lovers.

Nobody in German cinema ever did melodramatic suffering quite like Zarah Leander, and this - her debut film for UFA in 1937 - shows her at the peak of her allure. She plays a glamorous stage diva, and we first see her on stage in London singing her flirtatious number 'Yes, Sir'. She then takes the wrap for a fraud committed by her British officer lover (played by Willy Birgel) who is on the verge of sailing for Australia, and for her pains she is transported to Australia herself, as a convict.

In prison, accompanied by her fellow female inmates, she sings a beautiful, sad song directed to her rascally lover: 'I have such a deep longing for you'. She is released from Paramatta prison in order to marry a handsome farmer (played by Viktor Staal) - but she runs away from him, only to discover that the Birgel character is on the verge of marrying the governor's daughter.

Heartbroken, she tries to return to prison, then to the stage, but is booed by the Australian audience for her gloomy act - a real irony this, since the song she's singing, 'I'm standing in the Rain' is a real beauty, haunting and melancholy, making full use of Leander's lovely contralto voice. Zu Neuen Ufern is a very emotionally involving film, a pointer to the films Detlev Sierck would later make in the US under his anglicised name, Douglas Sirk. Perfect for a rainy Sunday, and proof of the star power of Zarah Leander.

Three good friends arrive home from vacation to discover they're bankrupt and the bailiff is about to strip their home of its contents. Left with just their car, they decide to open a gas station and it's then that they meet the lovely, blonde Lilian Cossmann - Lilian Harvey in one of her biggest hits. For such a very early talkie it's an astonishingly confident film, one of the first UFA 'operettas' yet with a contemporary, rather than period, setting. The Comedian Harmonists put in a guest spot as barbershop-style singing barmen, Olga Tschechowa appears in a supporting role and Werner Richard Heymann's marvelous music helps it all move along at a swift pace. This is a perennially popular Weimar-era German musical, and deservedly so.

This film is something of a forgotten gem. Biographies of Billy Wilder don't usually dwell too long on his time in the German film industry, yet the Wilder touches are apparent in the witty script of this terrific comedy. Example: Jou Jou tells the two window cleaners she was part of a novelty act called 'Ding and Dong'. 'Which were you?' they ask: 'I was the "and"' she replies - cut to a shot of the petite actress being flung about the stage like some human beanbag by two burly circus athletes. The two big musical numbers, 'We don't pay rent anymore' and 'Somewhere in the world there's a little bit of happiness' stand up well after all these years (they were written by Werner Richard Heymann, who went on to have a career composing film scores in Hollywood after the Nazi takeover in Germany). The lead actors are all on terrific form here - Lilian Harvey is charming, natural and never looked or sounded better, Willy Fritsch is at his boyishly likable best and Willi Forst, who went on to direct sophisticated comedies with much wit and flair himself, makes an able sidekick. The English language version retained Harvey, who was herself London-born.