Cast:
Eugen Klöpfer (Middle-aged man), Aud Egede-Nissen (Harlot), Max Schreck (Blind man), Lucie Höflich (The wife of the middle-aged man), Anton Edthofer (Pimp), Leonhard Haskel (Gentleman from the provinces), with Sascha, and Hans Trautner (Fellow) Directed by Karl Grune.
Review:
Admittedly, the country of Germany has had plenty of spotlight when it comes to featuring them as part of world cinema on Movie Night, since it is the second most covered country next to Japan. And yet, there always seems to be another director to encounter for the first time that released a film first in that country, whether involving expressionistic nightmares or other things. This applies to the director for this film in Karl Grune, who was born in Vienna, Austria; he attended drama school and served in World War I before becoming a film director. He would direct 27 features from his first in Menschen in Ketten (1919) to his last in A Clown Must Laugh (1936, also known as Pagliacci). After emigrating to England in the 1930s, he died in 1962 in Bournemouth. He also served as a producer on four films and wrote nine films, with The Street (1923) being one of the films he wrote (doing so with Carl Mayer and Julius Urgiss, with the former responsible for the treatment), and it is generally the film he is most known for.
There are a few discussions one could have over just what kind of movie this is, with most describing the film as a morality tale or an expressionistic nightmare. It also is a movie dedicated to telling a story as visually as possible, since there are very few intertitles present during the film, which has a run-time just under 90 minutes. In that sense, one feels adrift for a time when it comes to absorbing the atmosphere of a chaotic street, complete with likely the most notable shot of the film: a man walking in the street encountering a optician sign with glowing eyes that glow near him. It goes well for a film with nameless people that might as well not even have clear faces when it comes to how things seem so murky, and it all starts because someone tries to find a "choice of excitement" in their lives, which only results in someone finding themselves trapped in a nightmare without many choices to make. The title of the movie may seem generic, but it really is a movie about just how much a street can absorb into one's soul with the blend of reality and artifice (the sets are sets but presented with plenty of flicker). In that sense, it ends up making a decent curiosity piece within a slow burn of city life. Klopfer is tasked with making a character full of bumbling curiosity without being tasked with just playing it for silliness or bombast, and I would say he does a fine job, because he carries the movie along with the right amount of earthy presence that is swept with the flow of the things around him with righteous timing. Egede-Nissen serves as the casual alluring presence to street life that works out well in the careful contrast to Hoflich (who is used for one scene in the start and the end as the patient figure for Klopfer). Meanwhile, Schreck accompanies the film for a time with piercing interest (using his time playing a blind man for good effect), while Edthofer makes a useful goon to the proceedings. It does plod a little bit in the middle win the club sequences, and the climax isn't exactly surprising with its conclusion (again, morality tale, not a dark musing piece). I can't exactly call it a great movie, but it is at least a semi-interesting average movie. As a whole, the movie generally works out in making the events that happen mean something without just pointing a finger or going for easy sentiments, which makes a movie that closes its lead character in the same way that a street feels narrower when the lights come on, which generally works out for those curious to see a perspective of the street in all the murky details. If you can find the movie online, you might find something you like here.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
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