Frau Warrens Gewerbe (1960)

The story is set in upper-class circles in England in the late 19th century. Mrs. Warren’s trade is the oldest in the world, and she has amassed a considerable fortune from it. Her “hotels,” regarded by many of those around her as morally questionable, to say the least disreputable, have become meeting places for women of easy virtue and weighty gentlemen of rank from business, politics, and public life. The wealthy woman, who once worked as a prostitute in London’s slums and had an extremely difficult relationship with her mother (who, as we learn from flashbacks, beat her), has now added a magnificent country estate to her holdings. After a long separation, Mrs. Warren, accompanied by her business partner Sir George Crofts, wants to see her daughter Vivie again. The young woman, educated at the finest boarding schools thanks to Mrs. Warren’s income, works as an interior decorator and is to furnish the newly acquired property. The venerable architect Pread is there to assist her. Mrs. Warren and her daughter have long been estranged because they could not agree on many things. For instance, Mrs. Warren stubbornly refuses to tell the respectable Vivie who her father is. As soon as the two meet again, they quarrel on the first night. After speaking with Mr. Crofts, her mother’s partner, Vivie learns how her mother made her fortune and is deeply shocked. Now the bond between them seems irrevocably broken, especially since the father of Vivie’s great love, Frank Gardner, objects to his son marrying her because of Mrs. Warren’s business. Gardner seems to be a flighty fellow who does not know exactly what he wants, since he even makes a passionate attempt to kiss the mother of the woman he loves. Mrs. Warren, meanwhile, is angry with her partner Crofts for telling Vivie how they both earn their living, and throws him out of her house. At last, mother and daughter have a dramatic confrontation. In disgust, Vivie leaves her mother’s world behind forever.