The sin of Helga Arndt
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The sin of Helga Arndt |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1916 |
| length | approx. 67 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Joe May |
| script | Joe May William Kahn |
| production | Joe May |
| occupation | |
| |
The Sin of Helga Arndt is a German silent film melodrama from 1915 by Joe May with his wife Mia May in the title role.
action
Helga Arndt has a sick mother whose medical care she can no longer afford one day because she has lost her job in the factory. In vain she asks the pharmacist to give her the urgently needed medicine for her mother temporarily for free. When one day she finds a purse with (in the Austrian version) 100 crowns, she takes it and first goes shopping for medicine and food for her mother. This wrongdoing is discovered because the man who lost the wallet - a banker - noted the numbers of the banknotes and published them in a newspaper advertisement. This in turn is read by the merchant from whom Helga bought and paid with the banknotes found. The police now appear in Helga Arndt's apartment and arrest her. This is too much excitement for the seriously ill mother lying next door, who dies over it. Helga Arndt was taken straight from her mother's deathbed to a women's prison.
During her imprisonment, she met a fellow sufferer, and both were released on the same day. This woman first takes the now homeless Helga to her landlady. But Helga realizes the bad influence of her prison acquaintance and therefore quickly breaks away from her. But it is very difficult for them to find legal and well-paid jobs. Deeply depressed by all the rejections, Helga wants to have fun at least once, puts on a nice dress and surrenders to "sin" the following night. The man in question, an acquaintance of her prison friend, is the journalist Dr. Niklas. Both spend the night together. The next morning, of all times, Helga Arndt had a job offer; she can start at Schöndorfer as a travel agent. Helga pays board and lodging with the landlady and wants to see this life behind her as soon as possible. But her prison friend is still angry that Helga did not want to go into her swamp and blackens the young woman at her new employer, where she chats about her prison past.
The company's chief engineer, Berger, wants to prevent the expected martyrdom of Helga. He takes care of Helga Arndt and becomes a good friend to her. Soon he falls in love with her and happily tells Helga that they want to give him a post as director in the city. On the one hand, Helga is happy, but also suspects that once her patron saint Berger is gone, hell on earth will begin for her here. The man then asks if Helga doesn't want to be his wife. She enthusiastically says yes, but has concerns about her past. Well, if it was only the matter of the found wallet ... he would consider the matter closed. Or does she have something else to confess to him? Helga hides her one-time slip from him, shakes her head and says "no".
Three years have passed since then and the Berger family leads a harmonious marriage, with a son as the culmination of their happiness. Then she meets Niklas again. The editor-in-chief gave him the job of thwarting Director Berger's attempt to be elected senator. So it is perfect that Niklas learns who Berger's wife “with a past” is: none other than his one night stand Helga Arndt! The journalist publicly attacks Helga Arndt because of her past, but Helga's husband assumes that it can only be about the wallet affair that has been passed and calmly writes a short note that should be passed on to the newspaper. Helga then, hesitantly and hesitantly, confesses the whole truth to her husband. Berger is shocked and pushes his wife away. Helga Berger leaves the common house and threatens to degenerate due to a reckless lifestyle.
Their social decline is unstoppable; she becomes a lady-in-law, sees her son, who no longer recognizes her, at the side of the nanny on the sidewalk and finally becomes ill. One last time, physically weakened and in the middle of winter, dressed much too thinly, she goes to Berger's house to at least see her child again. Helga Berger collapses on the steps to the front door. Half-frozen, she is found hours later by Berger's servants and carried into the house. After waking up from fainting, she sees her husband for the last time and hugs her son; then Helga dies.
Production notes
The Sin of Helga Arndt was shot at the end of 1915, passed film censorship in January 1916 and was banned from young people. The premiere took place on January 28, 1916 in the Berlin Tauentzienpalast . In its Austrian version, the four-stroke was 1380 meters long.
criticism
“A very excellent picture, in whose tragic plot the pulse of real life beats. (...) Mia May ... knows how to vibrate and shake the deepest strings of our soul through her masterly playing. Excellent shots increase the impression of this effective film. "