Das Kind ruft (1914)
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Directors
Cast
Asta Nielsen, Fred Immler, Mary Scheller, Max Agerty, Senta Eichstaedt, Hans Lanser-Ludolff
A mother’s attempt to rescue her family from financial ruin leads to an impossible choice between her husband’s debts and her sick child’s care.
The story
A woman begins a happy marriage with her husband, and they have a child. Their domestic life is thrown into crisis when the husband runs up heavy debts and the child becomes seriously ill. Determined to help, the mother turns to her own mother for money, but the funds cannot cover both her husband’s debts and the medical attention her child urgently needs. She must decide how to use the limited help available as both crises demand her attention.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
In this short film, Asta Nielsen plays a mother who enters into a happy marriage with her husband, and they have a child. One day, her husband runs up heavy debts, and soon afterward their child also becomes seriously ill. Determined to help however she can, she decides to accept money from her own mother. But there is not enough money to help both her husband and her child at once. The mother therefore first tries to clear her husband’s debts, forgetting the plight of her sick child, who urgently needs medical attention. The child eventually dies, and, overwhelmed by endless grief, the mother succumbs to madness. In the depths of icy winter, she goes to the child’s grave. Bent by grief, the mother also dies as she weeps over her dead child in the cemetery.
Genres
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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