Soulful, but grim, semi-expressionist drama.

On the Verge of Negligence and Mutilation

Louise Brooks and József Bottlik in Pandora's Box (1929)

Werner Krauss in Secrets of a Soul (1926)

Ronald Colman, Bert Lytell, May McAvoy, and Irene Rich in Lady Windermere's Fan (1925)

Richard Barthelmess and Jean Muir in A Modern Hero (1934)

Édith Jéhanne in The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927)

F.W. Murnau, Lil Dagover, Emil Jannings, and Julius Kupfer-Sachs in Tartuffe (1925)

Greta Garbo and Georg Wilhelm Pabst in The Joyless Street (1925)

Greta Garbo and Valeska Gert in The Joyless Street (1925)

Greta Garbo, Jaro Fürth, and Georg Wilhelm Pabst in The Joyless Street (1925)

Asta Nielsen

Greta Garbo

Ágnes Eszterházy

Hugo Bettauer

F.H. Lyon

Willy Haas

In post-WWI Vienna, Greta (Greta Garbo), her kid sister, and retired dad try to make it through tough times.

Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Die freudlose Gasse

the title is apt

&apos;Joyless&apos; is right; this brooding, silent melodrama, set in the economic shambles of post-World War I Austria, looks as if it were filmed entirely at night. Working on the same principle as a soap opera, it&apos;s an exaggerated dramatic recreation of life in hard times, when housewives were forced to sell themselves to pay for their family&apos;s next meal, while the last remnants of the aristocracy blithely danced the evenings away and worked their spurious financial schemes, ignorant of the poverty surrounding them. The complicated plot involves jealousy, murder, seduction, and Greta Garbo, looking older and wiser than any twenty year old has a right to. The film was almost a warm-up for Pabst&apos;s equally debauched &apos;Pandora&apos;s Box&apos;, and was also known (for good reason) as &apos;Street of Sorrow&apos;.

Note: I saw what was probably the truncated version, on Super-8 (!!) The fully restored film would likely rate even higher...

'Joyless' is right; this brooding, silent melodrama, set in the economic shambles of post-World War I Austria, looks as if it were filmed entirely at night. Working on the same principle as a soap opera, it's an exaggerated dramatic recreation of life in hard times, when housewives were forced to sell themselves to pay for their family's next meal, while the last remnants of the aristocracy blithely danced the evenings away and worked their spurious financial schemes, ignorant of the poverty surrounding them. The complicated plot involves jealousy, murder, seduction, and Greta Garbo, looking older and wiser than any twenty year old has a right to. The film was almost a warm-up for Pabst's equally debauched 'Pandora's Box', and was also known (for good reason) as 'Street of Sorrow'.

Note: I saw what was probably the truncated version, on Super-8 (!!) The fully restored film would likely rate even higher...

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Die freudlose Gasse

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