In 1921 in the poor part of an Austrian town called Melchiorgasse there are only two wealthy people: the butcher Josef Geiringer and his wife. Mrs. Greifer 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 does not.
Original title Die freudlose Gasse
aka The Joyless Street
Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Cast:
Jaro Fürth as Councilor Rumfort
Greta Garbo as Grete Rumfort
Loni Nest as Mariandl Rumfort
Asta Nielsen as Marie Lechner
Max Kohlhase as Marie’s father
Sylvia Torf as Marie’s mother
Karl Etlinger as Max Rosenow
Ilka Grüning as Frau Rosenow
Agnes Esterhazy as Regina Rosenow
Alexander Murski as Dr. Leid
Tamara Tolstoi as Lia Leid
Henry Stuart as Egon Stirner
Robert Garrison as Canez
Einar Hanson as Lt. Davy
Mario Cusmich as Colonel Irving
Valeska Gert as Frau Greifer
Gräfin Tolstoi as Fräulein Henriette
Edna Markstein as Frau Merkl
Werner Krauss as Geiringer, the butcher
Hertha von Walther as Else
Otto Reinwald as Else’s husband
Gregori Chmara as Pjotr Orlow, waiter
M. Raskatoff as Trebitsch
Krafft-Raschig as American soldier
