Joyless Street

Joyless Street, also titled The Street of Sorrow or The Joyless Street, is a 1925 German silent film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst starring Greta Garbo and Asta Nielsen. It is based on a novel by Hugo Bettauer and widely considered an expression of New Objectivity in film. Plot In an alley called Melchiorgasse in a poor quarter of 1921 Vienna, 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 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.