Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness

Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück

Germany

1929

121 Min

Black and White

1.33:1

German, Silent

Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
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SCR Willy Döll, Jan Fethke, Heinrich Zille

CAST Alexandra Schmitt, Holmes Zimmermann, Ilse Trautschold, Gerhard Bienert, Friedrich Gnaß, Vera Sacharowa, Fee Wachsmuth

PROD DES Karl Haacker, Robert Scharfenberg

Synopsis

In the middle of an economic crisis, the workers are living in poverty and struggling to find a little happiness and get a warm meal. Mother Krause lives with her two grown-up children, as well as a shady “bed lodger” and his lover – a prostitute with a child – on just a few square metres. In next to no time, tensions build up, and soon crime is involved too. Mother Krausen’s painstakingly preserved order collapses. This story has lost hardly any of its relevance. In those days, columns of marching workers calling out “Join the ranks!” indicated a possible way out. But the older generation went to the dogs.
The project came about in honour of Heinrich Zille, who had died only a short while before. He had described his “milyeu” in great detail – all that was lacking now was the film. It was shot by Phil Jutzi, who was advised by Kaethe Kollwitz, in the style and spirit of Soviet Russian cinema – the Soviet films being imported and loaned by Prometheus, the production company. Rejecting banal entertainment and commercial success, Jutzi relied on the power of insight. A classic of proletarian cinema – and a key work of the “red dream factory”. —Berlinale

Director

Phil Jutzi

Phil Jutzi (sometimes known as Piel Jutzi) (July 22, 1896 – May 1, 1946) was a German cameraman and movie director.

Born Philipp Jutzi in Altleiningen as the son of a tailor, Jutzi was self-educated. (He seems to have been generally known by the Palatinate dialect form of his given name, Piel, but a lawsuit by Harry Piel forced him to go by “Phil,” though many journalists continued to use “Piel.”) In 1916 he made posters for a small movie theater in the Black Forest, having been rejected by the military during World War I because of a physical disability. In 1919 he was an administrator of the Internationale Film-Industrie company in Heidelberg, which specialized in detective movies and westerns. In 1923 he married Emmy Philippine Zimmermann, the sister of the actor Holmes Zimmermann (born Johannes Zimmermann, 1900-1957), who acted in seven of his films; in May 1926 a daughter, Gisela, was born.

In 1925 Jutzi moved to Berlin, where he worked as a documentary cameraman… read more

Phil Jutzi (sometimes known as Piel Jutzi) (July 22, 1896 – May 1, 1946) was a German cameraman and movie director.

Born Philipp Jutzi in Altleiningen as the son of a tailor, Jutzi was self-educated. (He seems to have been generally known by the Palatinate dialect form of his given name, Piel, but a lawsuit by Harry Piel forced him to go by “Phil,” though many journalists continued to use “Piel.”) In 1916 he made posters for a small movie theater in the Black Forest, having been rejected by the military during World War I because of a physical disability. In 1919 he was an administrator of the Internationale Film-Industrie company in Heidelberg, which specialized in detective movies and westerns. In 1923 he married Emmy Philippine Zimmermann, the sister of the actor Holmes Zimmermann (born Johannes Zimmermann, 1900-1957), who acted in seven of his films; in May 1926 a daughter, Gisela, was born.

In 1925 Jutzi moved to Berlin, where he worked as a documentary cameraman for the Communist film company Welt-Film; in 1928/29 he directed the semidocumentary film Um’s tägliche Brot (Hunger in Waldenburg). From 1926 he worked as a director for the leftist Prometheus Film, and on the basis of such films as Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück (Mother Krause’s Journey to Happiness) (1929) became known as a leading director of proletarian films. At the beginning of 1928 he became a member of the Communist Party, but left it at the end of 1929.

After the completion of Berlin–Alexanderplatz (1931), based on the Alfred Döblin novel, his political orientation changed drastically. In March 1933 Jutzi joined the Nazi Party, and under the Nazi regime became a prolific director, from 1933 to 1941 directing 49 short films (he was rarely allowed to make feature movies because of his political past). In 1934/35 he directed the German spy film Lockspitzel Asew (Azef the Agent Provocateur) with Fritz Rasp and Olga Chekhova, following it with the Austrian spy drama Der Kosak und die Nachtigall (The Cossack and the Nightingale) with Iván Petrovich und Jarmila Novotná. But he was not by any means a renowned director, and continued to have financial difficulties until the end of his life. During the 1940s his health worsened and he became unfit for work; after the end of World War Two he returned to his native Altleiningen, dying the following year. —wikipedia

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