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The non-Aryan professor who gets in the way of marching events in 1933 is played with back-bending restraint by Frank Morgan, who once more reveals that his bag of tricks includes far more than his usual movie titter. The swastika soon crosses the romance between daughter Freya (Margaret Sullavan), and her boy friend Fritz (Robert Young). Fritz's transformation from a windy but amiable young donkey into an expert instrument of hatred remains awesome even in a world where it has happened so often. Gradually father, mother, sons, see their world wavering around them, its old, familiar outlines dissolving into the crazy settings for a hideous fairy tale. Freya finds a prince charming in her friend Martin (James Stewart), a fairy godmother in his gentle old peasant mother (Maria Ouspenskaya). But when the time comes for a white charger, all prince and godmother can furnish is a pair of skis.
The skis do not carry Freya quite far enough. A bullet beats her to the border.
As the picture ends, Martin crosses it alone, sadly rejoicing in his escape—to Austria.