Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness

Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness

The great Zille-movie

1929 · 133 min · ★ 6.8 · Drama

Mutter Krause, her daughter Erna and her son Paul live in a tenement in the poorer section of Berlin's Wedding district. Along with them lives "the Tenant", his soon-to-be bride Friede, who works as a prostitute, and her child whose name isn't revealed in the film. Mutter Krause is a quiet, long-suffering old woman who earns what little she can delivering newspapers. However, Paul is an alcoholic and spends all her money on drink. Mutter Krause can't pay back the money she owes the man whose newspapers she delivered and he accuses her of stealing and threatens her with arrest. Mutter Krause must then pawn her last valuable possession, a treasured memento of her late husband. Paul then breaks into the same pawn shop. He gets away but is later arrested. Meanwhile, Erna begins dating a young man with Communist views, who turns Erna to Communism and also helps her earn the money her mother needs by more honest means.

Directed by Phil Jutzi · Written by Willy Döll

Your Rating

Cast

Make it a double feature

3h 43m together

Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness

Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf

Both from Phil Jutzi.

More from Phil JutziSee all →

Bull Arizona

Bull Arizona · 1919

A wild bandit and two-gun man (as the silent movie intertitle goes) Arizona Bull is a rough fellow but has a good heart.

Heiteres und Ernstes um den großen König

Heiteres und Ernstes um den großen König · 1936

Heiteres und Ernstes um den großen König

The short story focuses on two anecdotal episodes about the Prussian King Frederick II. In the first episode, the monarch meets an invalid. In the second episode, Baron Warkotsch's servant informs the king that Kappel's master is committing treason against the Prussian king, which puts Frederick's life in grave danger.

Tempo, Carlo, Tempo

Tempo, Carlo, Tempo · 1934

Tempo, Carlo, Tempo

MovieActionComedy

Short with Carlo Aldini.

The Cossack and the Nightingale

The Cossack and the Nightingale · 1936

The Cossack and the Nightingale

MovieThrillerRomance

The story revolves around Vera, a renowned singer constantly evading her possessive Russian husband, Count Ogolenski, who uses cunning tactics to eliminate her potential suitors and refuses to grant her freedom. Seeking refuge and romance, she becomes involved with the wealthy Dschahid Bey, leading to a tense confrontation amid elements of espionage, with settings including Egypt and the Nile. The narrative blends absurd intrigue, thriller aspects, and romantic tension, reflecting Perutz's style of fantastical and mysterious tales.

Lockspitzel Asew

Lockspitzel Asew · 1935

Lockspitzel Asew

Die Todeszeche

Die Todeszeche · 1930

MovieDocumentary

A description of the prevailing deplorable conditions in coal mines, as well as the burial of deceased miners following a mining accident in the Silesian town of Neurode.

Hunger in Waldenburg

Hunger in Waldenburg · 1929

Hunger in Waldenburg

MovieDramaDocumentary

Powerful semi-documentarian depiction of the miserable working and living conditions in the Silesian city of Waldenburg.

Salamander

Salamander · 1928

The film is based on real events and reveals the tragic episodes from the life of the Austrian biologist scientist-materialist Paul Kammerer (1880-1926), hunted by regressive scientists and Catholic reactionaries who committed suicide.

Pension Elise Nottebohm

Pension Elise Nottebohm · 1937

Pension Elise Nottebohm

MovieCrimeDrama

An unknown curiosity even for experts, this is a film from the late work of the director of the classic films Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness (1929) and Berlin, Alexanderplatz (1931). Although the communist Philipp Jutzi readily switched sides to the new rulers of Germany after the change of regime, the Goebbels administration did not forget his past. At first, he was allowed to make feature films for two more years (including The Cossack and the Nightingale with Jarmila Novotná, 1935), then only short films, such as this detective story with an educational mission.

Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf

Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf · 1931

Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf

MovieCrimeDrama

Franz Biberkopf has served four years in prison. His return to normal life is not successful.

The Living Corpse

The Living Corpse · 1929

The Living Corpse

The central character of the play, Fedor Protasov, is tormented by the belief that his wife Liza has never really chosen between him and the more conventional Victor Karenin, a rival for her hand. He wants to kill himself, but doesn't have the nerve. Running away from his life, he first falls in with Gypsies, and into a sexual relationship with a Gypsy singer, Masha.

More Like This

The Kid

The Kid · 1921

MovieComedyDrama

A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.

Beyond Silence

Beyond Silence · 1996

MovieDramaMusic

Beyond Silence is about a family and a young girl’s coming of age story. This German film looks into the lives of the deaf and at a story about the love for music. A girl who has always had to translate speech into sign language for her deaf parents yet when her love for playing music grows strong she must decide to continue doing something she cannot share with her parents.

Lili Marleen

Lili Marleen · 1981

The story of a German singer named Willie, who while working in Switzerland, falls in love with a Jewish composer named Robert, whose family is helping people to flee from the Nazis. Robert’s family is skeptical of Willie, thinking she could be a Nazi as she becomes famous for singing the song “Lili Marleen”.

People on Sunday

People on Sunday · 1930

People on Sunday

A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari · 1920

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

MovieDramaHorror

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.

The Good German

The Good German · 2006

The Good German

MovieDramaMystery

An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.

Tough Enough

Tough Enough · 2006

MovieDramaThriller

From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.

Summer in Berlin

Summer in Berlin · 2005

Summer in Berlin

MovieComedyDrama

An intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin · 1925

Battleship Potemkin

MovieDramaHistory

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre.

Nanook of the North

Nanook of the North · 1922

Nanook of the North

MovieDocumentaryDrama

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

October (Ten Days that Shook the World) · 1928

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

MovieDramaHistory

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

Effi Briest

Effi Briest · 1974

MovieHistoryDrama

When 17-year-old Effi Briest marries the elderly Baron von Instetten, she moves to a small, isolated Baltic town and a house that she fears is haunted. Starved for companionship, Effi begins a friendship with Major Crampas, a charismatic womanizer.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter