Dries, de brandwacht

Summary

Semi-documentary showing some of the activities of the Amsterdam fire brigade, interwoven with the story of a boy who wants to become a firefighter.

In 1914, young Dries Verbeek and his schoolmates watch how firemen release a dove that has become entangled in telephone wires. Dries likes Marie, the girl who lives next door, but she snubs him and calls him a horrid street ruffian. Dries has trouble at school and is eventually expelled, whereupon he joins the navy.

Ten years later Dries returns to Amsterdam and gets a job with the fire brigade. He saves a child who has fallen into a canal and rescues a woman from a burning house. Marie, now an attractive young woman, changes her earlier opinion of Dries and admires his bravery. Before long the two young people form a loving couple.