When a prostitute is murdered in a cheap Berlin boarding house, an investigating judge suspects that the killer is her boyfriend, unaware that his own son and daughter are also mixed up in the case.
Direction
Siodmak's shadow-steeped Berlin, before noir had a name
Acting
Bassermann's crumbling patriarch, dignity dissolving frame by frame
Production
Claustrophobic boarding house as moral pressure cooker
Director
Robert Siodmak
Albert Bassermann
Dr. Konrad Bienert, Landgerichtsrat
Gustav Fröhlich
Fritz Bernt, Student
Hans Brausewetter
Walter Bienert, Beinerts Sohn, Student
Oskar Sima
Karl Zülke, Portier
Heinrich Gretler
Kurt Brann, sein Untermieter
Julius Falkenstein
Anatol Scherr, ein Hausbewohner
Gerhard Bienert
Baumann, Kriminalkommissar
Charlotte Ander
Gerda Bienert - Bienerts Tochter
Annie Markart
Erna Kabisch
Edith Meinhard
Mella Ziehr
Hermann Speelmans
Bruno Klatte, Artist
Jakob Tiedtke
Ein genierter Herr
Emilia Unda
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Siodmak fled Germany in 1933; this film's claustrophobic dread eerily prefigures the coming collapse.
Part of 1931's 'Krimi' boom, when German cinema metabolized economic despair into murder stories.
DE
