I've seen this movie in a print from Blackhawk Films as "Slums of Berlin" with English inter-titles. These titles certainly don't help to create sympathy, with repeated use of the word "clod" for more than one character, reinforced with a claim to a dictionary definition in which a Clod is earth and without soul. The movie claims to be realistic, authentic extras. If they are "verrufen," they are either 'in disrepute' or 'notorious'--pity them or hold your nose. Lots of shots of smeared children. But the protagonist, with a craggy face of handsome style, comes into good clothing since he was always the right sort, and the more delicate women recognize that. He's on his way to the proprietary class, while the lower orders "revert to type." There is by now and one might hope back then a bad attitude towards its subject. Yet that gives this film some historical interest. One does find a predecessor of Brecht's Mr. Peacham of "The Threepenny Opera," who runs a workshop that pays its day labourers in gin, and the protagonist fixes a machine more plausibly than he might for Fritz Lang. Camera placement is even more static because of too frequent inter-titles.
Review of Slums of Berlin
