Joyless Street 1925

Format: PAL or NTSC (Region Free (0)) will play on US systems. Please read the FAQ below.

Joyless Street (German: Die freudlose Gasse, 1925, exhibited in the U.S. as The Street of Sorrow, in Britain as The Joyless Street), a film based on the novel by Hugo Bettauer and directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in Germany, is one of the first films of the "New Objectivity“ movement. Greta Garbo stars in her second major role.

In 1921 in a street called Melchiorgasse in the poor part of Vienna, Austria, there are only two wealthy people: the butcher Josef Geiringer and Mrs. Greifer, who runs a fashion boutique and a nightclub, patronized by wealthy Viennese. Annexed to the nightclub is Merkl Hotel, a brothel to which the women of the nightclub bring their clients. The film follows the lives of two women from the same poor neighborhood, as they try to better themselves during the period of Austrian postwar hyperinflation. They are Marie, who becomes a prostitute, and Grete, who at the last moment, is saved from that fate.

Marie, in love with a young banker assistant, Egon Stirner, believes him to be unfaithful, and falsely accuses him of murder, all the while knowing the true identity of the murderer, from having witnessed it herself.

At the finale Else, a wife and mother, who has previously provided sexual favors to the butcher for meat, kills the butcher because he refuses her any more meat. The poor of the neighborhood, hearing the sounds of the nightclub, revolt against the clients by throwing stones. The nightclub burns down killing Else and her husband in the attic, but not before allowing them to ease their infant safely down from the window to the waiting poor. Only Grete seems to have any hope of leaving Melchiorgasse and this because of her relationship with an American Red Cross officer.

Run Time: 60 Minutes

FAQ

Item details: Such is the nature of many films from this era that video and audio quality can be variable, reflecting the rarity of these titles. The best available sources for sound and picture quality are used wherever possible though are not ‘restored’ and are not in high definition. Please click on the listing images to enlarge screenshots from the title for a better idea of picture quality. Items are supplied on a colour printed DVD in a clear plastic wallet sleeve and not in a full size case, no additional artwork is supplied.

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