Die freudlose Gasse

Infobox Film
title = The Joyless Street
original title = Die freudlose Gasse
country = Germany
released = 18 May 1925 (Berlin)
5 July 1927 (US premiere)
language = German
director = Georg Wilhelm Pabst
writer = Hugo Bettauer (novel)
Willy Haas
distributor = Sofar-Film-Produktion GmbH
cinematography = Guido Seeber
Curt Oertel
Robert Lach
editing = Marc Sorkin
starring = Greta Garbo
Asta Nielsen
Agnes Esterhazy
Henry Stuart
Robert Garrison
Einar Hanson

"Die freudlose Gasse" ("Joyless Street", 1925) is a film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in Germany, based on the novel by Hugo Bettauer, and is one of the first films of the "New Objectivity“ movement. It stars Greta Garbo in her second starring role. The film is often described as a morality story in which the 'fallen woman' suffers for her sins, while the more virtuous woman gets the happy end [Essay by Michael Kohler on The Joyless Street at Senses of Cinema: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/04/32/the_joyless_street.html] .

Plot

In 1921 in the poverty-stricken part of town called Melchiorgasse in Austria inhabited by impoverished gentry and blue-collar workers, there are only two wealthy people: the butcher Josef Geiringer and his wife. Mrs. Greifer runs a fashion boutique and a nightclub patronized by the wealthier class of Vienna. Annexed to the nightclub is „Merkl“ hotel, a by-the-hour establishment, in which the women of the nightclub prostitute themselves in order to pay back their debts to Frau Greifer. The film follows the plights of two women from the same neighborhood in their attempts to pull themselves out of the rubble of postwar hyperinflation: Marie, who lives in abject poverty, succumbs to the lure of prostitution. Grete, from a struggling family used to better circumstances, takes the higher road.

At the end of the film, a sick and impoverished Else kills the butcher because she won't give her any meat and the poor in the neighborhood, hearing the sounds from the nightclub, begin a stone-throwing revolt against the rich. In the ruckus, the building goes up in flames, killing a pair of beggars. In the end, only Grete seems to have any hope of someday rising out Melchiorgasse, because of her relationship with an American Red Cross officer.

Trivia

*The name "Frau Greifer" literally means "Mrs. Grabber", a metaphor for the stranglehold that poverty and prostitution have on women who fall into that way of life.
*The actress playing Elsa is Hertha von Walther (1903-1987), who looks very much like Marlene Dietrich, giving rise to the false rumor that Dietrich has a bit part in this film.

Notes

External Link

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015842 "Die Freudlose Gasse" at IMDB]