Tragedy of the Street

Tragedy of the Street

114 mins | Drama | April 14, 1927

Before road movies there were street films, a distinct cycle within German silent cinema. The essential ingredient - misalliance between bourgeois and slum dweller - is present here, though somewhat displaced by Asta Nielsen's star persona. She plays an aging hooker who falls for handsome Felix, a student who has rowed with his parents and ventured into the lower depths. Dreaming of a new life, she ejects her pimp and invests her savings in a cake shop. Even without that title, though, you wouldn't bet on a happy ending. Nielsen is a quite restrained sort of diva, and Rahn likewise soft pedals the melodrama, except for the grand finale. He died soon after making this, his contemporaries regretting the masterworks the cinema was thus denied. Well, maybe.

Tragedy of the Street

114 mins | Drama | April 14, 1927

Tragedy of the Street
Before road movies there were street films, a distinct cycle within German silent cinema. The essential ingredient - misalliance between bourgeois and slum dweller - is present here, though somewhat displaced by Asta Nielsen's star persona. She plays an aging hooker who falls for handsome Felix, a student who has rowed with his parents and ventured into the lower depths. Dreaming of a new life, she ejects her pimp and invests her savings in a cake shop. Even without that title, though, you wouldn't bet on a happy ending. Nielsen is a quite restrained sort of diva, and Rahn likewise soft pedals the melodrama, except for the grand finale. He died soon after making this, his contemporaries regretting the masterworks the cinema was thus denied. Well, maybe.
IMDb rating 6.5
Producers Pantomim-Film AG
Original title Dirnentragödie
Directors Bruno Rahn
Writers Wilhelm Braun, Leo Heller, Ruth Goetz

Cast

Asta Nielsen

as Auguste - Old Street Walker

Hilde Jennings

as Clarissa - Young Street Walker

Oskar Homolka

as Anton - Pimp

Werner Pittschau

as Felix - Student

Hedwig Pauly-Winterstein

as His Mother

Otto Kronburger

as His Father

Hermann Picha

as Kauzke - Pianist

Eva Speyer

as Dirne - Prostitute