The Joyless Street (1925)

Vienna in the biggest depression, directly after WW1. In a slum, Lila Leid, the wife of lawyer Leid is murdered, Egon, secretary of one of Leid's clients is arrested. He was with her, and ... See full summary »

Director:

Georg Wilhelm Pabst (as G.W. Pabst)

Writers:

Hugo Bettauer (based on the novel by), F.H. Lyon (translator)

Stars:

Asta Nielsen, Greta Garbo, Ágnes Eszterházy

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Asta Nielsen	...	Maria Lechner
Greta Garbo	...	Greta Rumfort
Ágnes Eszterházy	...	Regina Rosenow (as Agnes Esterhazy)
Werner Krauss	...	Metzger von Melchiorstrasse
Henry Stuart	...	Egon Stirner
Einar Hanson	...	Lt. Davis
Gregori Chmara	...	Kellner
Karl Etlinger	...	Max Rosenow
Ilka Grüning	...	Frau Rosenow
Jaro Fürth	...	Hofrat Rumfort
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Dorothea Thiele	...	Lia Leid

Storyline

Vienna in the biggest depression, directly after WW1. In a slum, Lila Leid, the wife of lawyer Leid is murdered, Egon, secretary of one of Leid's clients is arrested. He was with her, and had her necklace, because he needed some money for his own stock exchange deals. The same deal brings poverty to ex-government official Rumfort, his daughter Greta, who also has lost her job, tries to get some money to get food. She rents a room of the flat she, her young sister and her father are living in to an American Red Cross official, who pays $60 rent, but the money is taken by some of her father's creditors. But their neighbour, shop owner Mrs Greifer knows how to "help", she and Mrs. Merkel are running a nightclub with a brothel...

---

Plot Keywords:

fired | money | slum | secretary | nightclub | 

---

Genres:

Drama

---

Details

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Release Date:

5 July 1927 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Joyless Street

Company Credits

Production Co:

Sofar-Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

125 min 94 min (1981 restored) 175 min 115 min (copy with English titles at Brussels Musée du Cinéma) 148 min 142 min 151 min 150 min (2012 print of the Filmmuseum München 1989-2009 restoration) 60 min (edited)

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The dark-haired woman waiting in the butcher shop line who is often mistaken for Marlene Dietrich is actually Hertha von Walther. She had a much larger role in the original uncut version of the film. She can also be seen as the lab assistant in Secrets of a Soul (1926) with Werner Krauss.

---

Connections

Featured in Nur zum Spaß, nur zum Spiel (1977)

User Reviews

the title is apt

'Joyless' is right; this brooding, silent melodrama, set in the economic shambles of post-World War I Austria, looks as if it were filmed entirely at night. Working on the same principle as a soap opera, it's an exaggerated dramatic recreation of life in hard times, when housewives were forced to sell themselves to pay for their family's next meal, while the last remnants of the aristocracy blithely danced the evenings away and worked their spurious financial schemes, ignorant of the poverty surrounding them. The complicated plot involves jealousy, murder, seduction, and Greta Garbo, looking older and wiser than any twenty year old has a right to. The film was almost a warm-up for Pabst's equally debauched 'Pandora's Box', and was also known (for good reason) as 'Street of Sorrow'.

Note: I saw what was probably the truncated version, on Super-8 (!!) The fully restored film would likely rate even higher...