''Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness '' (German: ''Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück'') is a 1929

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

silent

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Phil Jutzi Phil Jutzi (sometimes known as Piel Jutzi) (22 July 1896 – 1 May 1946) was a German cinematographer and film director. Biography Born Philipp Jutzi in Altleiningen as the son of a tailor, Jutzi was self-educated. (He seems to have been generally ...

and starring

Alexandra Schmitt Alexandra () is a female given name of Greek origin. It is the first attested form of its variants, including Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus ...

, Holmes Zimmermann and Ilse Trautschold. The film was produced by the left-wing Prometheus Film, a German subsidiary of the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

company Mezhrabpom-Film. It depicts the cruelty of poverty and depicts

Communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

as a rescuing force that, alas, reaches Mutter Krause and the child that lives in Krause's apartment too late. It was shot at the

Johannisthal Studios The Johannisthal Studios were film studios located in the Berlin area of Johannisthal. Founded in 1920 on the site of a former airfield, they were a centre of production during the Weimar and Nazi eras. Nearly four hundred films were made at Johan ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Plot

Mutter Krause and her two adult children, daughter Erna and son Paul, live in a tenement in

Wedding A wedding is a ceremony in which two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnicity, ethnicities, Race (human categorization), races, religions, Religious denomination, denominations, Cou ...

, a cramped

working-class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

district of Berlin. With them lives "the Tenant", a petty criminal, his fiancée Friede, a prostitute, and Friede's young child. Mutter Krause is a quiet, long-suffering old woman who earns what little she can delivering newspapers. However, Paul is unemployed, earns little from ragpicking and often relies on her for money. One day, he spends the money collected from her customers on drink. Mutter Krause pawns her last valuable possession, a treasured memento of her late husband, but still has not enough to satisfy her obligation to her employer, who sacks her and takes her to court. Erna begins dating Max, a young communist worker, who promises her to help her mother meet her debt. Paul is persuaded to join others to break into the same pawn shop to get money for the debt. When police are alerted, he gets away but is then arrested in front of his mother, who does not know of Max's promise. In despair, Mutter Krause turns on the gas in the apartment and kills herself, along with Friede's child.

Notes

The scene near the end depicting the political rally glorifies the marching forms of the Communist rally-goers. The original German intertitles are written in Berlin dialect.Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück (Zwischentitel)
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References

Bibliography

* Kreimeier, Klaus. ''The Ufa Story: A History of Germany's Greatest Film Company, 1918-1945''. University of California Press, 1999.

External links

* * 1929 films Banned films in Nazi Germany German silent feature films Films of the Weimar Republic 1929 drama films German black-and-white films Films set in Berlin Films directed by Phil Jutzi Films about social realism Films shot at Johannisthal Studios Silent German drama films 1920s German films {{1920s-Germany-silent-drama-film-stub