''Joyless Street'' (german: Die freudlose Gasse), also titled ''The Street of Sorrow'' or ''The Joyless Street'', is a 1925 German

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst starring

Greta Garbo Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses, she was known for her melancholic, somber persona, her film portrayals of tragic ch ...

and

Asta Nielsen The General Students' Committee (German: Allgemeiner Studierendenausschuss) or AStA, is the acting executive board and the external representing agency of the (constituted) student body at universities in most German states. It is therefore consid ...

. It is based on a novel by

Hugo Bettauer Maximilian Hugo Bettauer (18 August 1872 – 26 March 1925) was a prolific Austrian writer and journalist, who was murdered by a Nazi Party follower on account of his opposition to antisemitism. He was well known in his lifetime; many of his book ...

and widely considered an expression of

New Objectivity The New Objectivity (in german: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, wh ...

in film.

Plot

In an alley called Melchiorgasse in a poor quarter of 1921

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Austria, the lives of several people coincide. Marie, daughter of an abusive war veteran father, hopes to escape her home with the help of her boyfriend Egon, a bank clerk. Grete is the elder daughter of impoverished civil servant Rumfort. Marie and Grete join the overnight line of waiting customers outside of the butcher's shop run by the abusive Josef Geiringer, but Grete passes out and loses her place. Marie and her friend Else manage to enter Geiringer's shop, where they receive a piece of meat in exchange for Else's sexual services. Else offers Marie to share the meat with her, but Marie declines, knowing that Else, whose husband is unemployed, has a young child to feed. Marie runs away from home and asks Egon to take her in, but Egon, who is entangled with two women of Vienna's high society, hoping that they will help him climb up the social ladder, declines. With the help of Mrs. Greifer, owner of a fashion boutique and a night club, Marie becomes the mistress of Canez, a speculator on the stock exchange market. During a date with Canez, she witnesses Egon meeting with Mrs. Leid, one of his female acquaintances. When Mrs. Leid is later found strangled, Marie states that she saw Egon commit the murder. Meanwhile, Rumfort loses his pension in a share transaction in which Canez was involved, while Grete is dismissed from her job for rejecting her employer's sexual advances. To pay for their expenses, the Rumfort family offers a room to let to

American Red Cross The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the des ...

officer Davy, who is enamoured with Grete's charms. When Davy's adjutant accuses Grete's younger sister of stealing from their supplies, Grete's father insists that they leave. Grete lends money from Mrs. Greifer, who in turn tries to talk Grete into working for her. Out of bad conscience, Marie confesses to the police that it was she who murdered Mrs. Leid, and that she falsely accused Egon out of jealousy. When Davy witnesses Grete during a nightclub event, he scolds her for her amorality, but forgives her when he learns from her father that she only participated to save her family from starving. Outside of the nightclub, the Melchiorgasse residents have gathered and start throwing stones through the windows. Else kills Geiringer after he refuses to deliver her more meat. When the house where she lives with her husband and child catches fire, the couple manage to save their child before they both die in the flames.

Cast

Jaro Fürth Jaro Fürth (born Edwin Fürth-Jaro; 21 April 1871 – 12 November 1945) was an Austrian stage and film actor. Early life Fürth was born to Jewish parents in Prague.Greta Garbo Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses, she was known for her melancholic, somber persona, her film portrayals of tragic ch ...

as Grete Rumfort *

Loni Nest Eleonore "Loni" Arnault ( Nest, 4 August 1915 – 2 October 1990), known professionally by her maiden name of Loni Nest, was a German actress. Born in Berlin, she was a child star of German silent films in the 1920s. She was filmed for the firs ...

as Mariandl Rumfort *

as Marie Lechner * Max Kohlhase as Marie's father * Sylvia Torf as Marie's mother *

Karl Etlinger Karl Etlinger (16 October 1879 – 8 May 1946) was a German film actor. He appeared in more than 110 films between 1914 and 1946. Selected filmography * '' The Eternal Curse'' (1921) * '' The Poisoned Stream'' (1921) * '' The Films of Prin ...

as Max Rosenow *

Ilka Grüning Ilka Grüning (born Ilka Henriette Grunzweig; 4 September 1876 – 11 November 1964) was an Austrian-Hungarian actress. Born in Vienna in the old Austrian-Hungarian Empire, she was one of many Jewish actors and actresses that were forced to fle ...

as Frau Rosenow *

Agnes Esterhazy Agnes or Agness may refer to: People *Agnes (name), the given name, and a list of people named Agnes or Agness * Wilfrid Marcel Agnès (1920–2008), Canadian diplomat Places * Agnes, Georgia, United States, a ghost town *Agnes, Missouri, United ...

as Regina Rosenow *

Alexander Murski Alexander Alexandrovich Murski ( Russian: Александр Александрович Мурский) (1 November 1869 – April 1943) was a Saint Petersburg, Russian-born German actor. Murski died in 1943 in Toulouse, Midi-Pyrénées, Fra ...

as Dr. Leid * Tamara Tolstoi as Lia Leid * Henry Stuart as Egon Stirner * Robert Garrison as Canez *

Einar Hanson Einar Hanson (; Stockholm, Sweden – ; Santa Monica, California), also known as Einar Hansen, was a Swedish silent film actor. Career Discovered at Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theatre by director Mauritz Stiller, handsome and sophisticated, he w ...

as Lt. Davy * Mario Cusmich as Colonel Irving *

Valeska Gert Valeska or Valeška may refer to the following people: Given name *Valeska von Gallwitz (1833–1888), German writer *Valeska Gert (1892–c. 1978), German dancer and cabaret artist * Valeska Menezes (born 1976), Brazilian volleyball player * Val ...

as Frau Greifer * Gräfin Tolstoi as Fräulein Henriette * Edna Markstein as Frau Merkl * Werner Krauss as Geiringer, the butcher *

Hertha von Walther Hertha von Walther (born Hertha Stern und Walter von Monbary, 12 June 1903 – 12 April 1987) was a German film actress. She appeared in 80 films between 1921 and 1983. Biography Hertha von Walther was born Hertha Stern und Walther von Monb ...

as Else *

Otto Reinwald Otto Reinwald (23 August 1899 – 1 July 1968) was a German film actor.Eisner p.350 The elder brother of the actresses Grete Reinwald and Hanni Reinwald, he made his screen debut in 1913 as a child actor. He later became a production manager, acti ...

as Else's husband *

Gregori Chmara Gregori Mikhailovich Chmara (Ukrainian: Григорій Михайлович Хмара, Russian: Григорий Михайлович Хмара; 29 July 1878 – 3 February 1970) was a Ukrainian-born stage and film actor whose career spanned ...

as Pjotr Orlow, waiter * M. Raskatoff as Trebitsch * Krafft-Raschig as American soldier *

Renate Brausewetter Renate Brausewetter (1 October 1905 – 20 August 2006) was a Spanish-born German silent film actress. She was the younger sister of German actor Hans Brausewetter. Brausewetter was born in Málaga, Spain, moving to Berlin, Germany in 1915. ...

as woman (uncredited) *

Maria Forescu Maria Forescu (15 January 1875 28 October 1947) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian opera singer and film actress. During the silent and talkies era of the German cinema, she appeared in several movies as a supporting actress. When Adolf Hitle ...

as woman (uncredited) *

Lya Mara Lya Mara (born Aleksandra Gudowicz; 1 August 1897 – 1 March 1960) was a Polish actress. She was one of the biggest stars of the German silent cinema. Biography Lya Mara was born Aleksandra Gudowicz in a Polish family in Riga, Governorate ...

as woman (uncredited) *

Iván Petrovich Iván Petrovich ( sr, Иван Петровић, Ivan Petrović; 1 January 1894 – 18 October 1962) was a Serbian film actor and singer. He was the first actor from Yugoslavia to have a successful international movie career. Petrovich mainly w ...

as man (uncredited)

Production

Screenwriter Willy Haas recalled in his memoirs that Pabst rang him up in 1924, asking him to read Bettauer's novel, which Pabst thought would make for a good film story. Haas read the book, which he regarded an awful crime potboiler ("Reißer"). He and Pabst agreed that the social aspect should be emphasised, "the strident imagery of the inflation, the bankruptcy of civil servants and academics, the corruption, the moral decay" (Haas), while the criminalistic aspect should be cast aside. The film's sets were designed by the

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the vis ...

s Otto Erdmann and

Hans Sohnle Hans Sohnle (17 September 1895 – 24 March 1976) was a German art director.Chandler p.270 He frequently collaborated with Otto Erdmann on set designs. Selected filmography * '' The Loves of Käthe Keller'' (1919) * '' The Woman in Doctor's Gar ...

, Mark Sorkin served as assistant director and editor.

Release history

Shortly after its release, different versions of the film circulated because of censorship cuts. One US release version was shortened to one hour running time, omitting the Asta Nielsen storyline. Between 1995 and 1998, with the help of international archives, the Munich Film Archive restored the film to its current length of 151 minutes, which is still approx. half an hour shorter than the original version. A region 2 DVD version with documentary extras is available. The film was exhibited in the US as ''The Street of Sorrow'' and in the UK as ''The Joyless Street''.

Reception and legacy

In her 1955 book ''Die dämonische Leinwand'' (engl. ''The Haunted Screen''), German film historian

Lotte H. Eisner Lotte H. Eisner (5 March 1896, Berlin – 25 November 1983, Paris) was a German-French writer, film critic, archivist and curator. Eisner worked initially as a film critic in Berlin, then in Paris where in 1936 she met Henri Langlois with whom she ...

criticised the film's studio sets,

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

lightning and formulaic depiction of poverty: "everything is artificial, too condensed, too symbolically accentuated".

Rudolf Thome Rudolf Thome (born 14 November 1939) is a German film director and producer. He has directed more than 30 films since 1964. His 1986 film ''Tarot'' was entered into the 15th Moscow International Film Festival. Selected filmography Director * ...

, reviewing ''Joyless Street'' for the ''

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat. Hist ...

'' in 1964, disagreed with this view, calling it "Pabst's masterpiece", whose scenes do not represent ideas and whose images only conveye the meaning of what can actually be seen. 30 years after Eisner, critic

Pauline Kael Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions oft ...

titled ''Joyless Street'' an "extraordinary triumph of cinematography and Expressionist design", which despite its weak parts "makes a very strong visual impression".

Dave Kehr David Kehr (born 1953) is an American museum curator and film critic. For many years a critic at the '' Chicago Reader'' and the ''Chicago Tribune,'' he later wrote a weekly column for ''The New York Times'' on DVD releases. He later became a ...

, writing for the ''

Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by ...

'' in 1985, was more reserved, calling it "heavy going" and "an official classic that hasn't quite earned the title".

References

External links

* *
Literature on ''Joyless Street''

lobby card as ''Street of Sorrow''
Ha,Heritage Auctions) {{Authority control 1925 films German drama films German silent feature films 1925 drama films German black-and-white films Films of the Weimar Republic Films directed by G. W. Pabst Films based on Austrian novels Films set in Vienna Films set in 1921 Films about prostitution in Austria Social realism in film Silent drama films 1920s German films 1920s German-language films