User reviews

If you enjoy classic silent cinema then you won't want to miss this treat. At times scenes are reminiscent of King Vidor's The Crowd, made just the year before (most especially in those moments set indoors, during which one of the couples gently bicker or the scene during which the principals first meet up for their group date); while at others the open air, carefree mood is suggestive of Renoir's masterpiece Partie de Campagne, made a decade later. But People on Sunday is a distinct work in its own right, an evocative film made by some stellar talent: the Siodmak brothers, Edgar Ulmer, Billy Wilder and Fred Zimmerman - all of whom would go on to varying degrees of success in the States after fleeing the Nazis. Their film is thus both a record of a time lost, a beautifully shot piece showing a Berlin that was soon to vanish for ever, as well as demonstrating the collaborative talents of some major figures in their early years. There is no hint of the dark years to come seen here, or the debilitating effects of run away inflation which marked the end of the Weimar Republic and led to the inexorable rise of extreme politics. People on Sunday is above such explicit social comment, unless it is political by the mere fact of focusing on ordinary people. It simply tells the tale of a group (played by non professional actors we are informed, but it hard to tell such is the quality of the performances) enjoying themselves while out on one sunny weekend day, picnicking, boating, kissing, promising more to each other and so on, interspersed with more general shots of the German people similarly at play. The skill and pleasure for the viewer today is in the way this is done, completely without ostentation, shot marvelously, everything still feeling fresh, spontaneous and genuine , and with a real feeling for place. Ironically, for this viewer at least, so much of the film seems so natural and fluid that one is more aware that is an illusion; such unforced art as this takes a great deal of time, patience and skill on the part of the participants and creators.

If you want to see more of German cinema from this period, other than more familiar classics, then this is a real treat, being both less known and marvelously restored. The BFI DVD version has been created from several sources and is the longest version available. It also features a splendid Weill-like score, which fits the milieu like a glove and which begs issuing separately as it stands up well as a listen on its own.

A German silent curio heralds several future magnates of the film industry in Hollywood, PEOPLE ON Sunday is the debut feature for both its directors Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer, with a script from a tender-age Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann in the camera branch. It is a bracing urban symphony of Berlin during the interwar times, confining its time-frame within a weekend, convenes a cast of five non-professional young actors (who are essentially playing themselves) and blithely breaking the boundary of studio lot and taking the story onto the streets of the metropolis, from a rush-hour Behnhof Zoo train station near the beginning to the movie's main course, a Sunday outing in Wannasee.

The quintet are Erwin, a taxi driver, his model wife Annie, and his friend Wolfgang, a wine dealer, then Christl, a film extra Wolfgang accosts in the said train station and Brigitte, her friend, who works in a record shop. Throughout its simple plot structure, the narrative heartily proceeds with a bifurcating stratagem, a plump, honest-looking Erwin's squabble-plagued marital life with a languorous Annie in their pokey bedsit, contrasting with a louche Wolfgang's pat oscillation in wooing either Christl or Brigitte, furthermore, a tangible rift is wondrously evinced between the two flappers, Christl is the prim and proper type, who naturally spurns Wolfgang's advances in the well-orchestrated lake-swimming sequences, but when she notices that Wolfgang takes his offensive towards a more skittish Brigitte and the two become lovey-dovey, she can barely contain her pique, not only to Wolfgang, but also to her girlfriend.

Yet, what leaves the most piquant tang is a thoroughgoing embodiment of machismo by the two male creatures, Erwin is the off-limits married man, both girls give him a decent berth, humbled by a comparatively more good-looking and athletic Wolfgang, he knows his role very well, a sausage juggler for laughter, a cavalier company, completely forgets about Annie's absence when there are new girls around, but also seemingly attests that, when sex is off the table, girls are just girls, no further communication is worth his effort. Wolfgang is more or less more readable, cops a feel whenever he can find a chance but will not get his feet wet into a stable relationship, and if a girl becomes too pushy, there is always a Sunday football match he can attend with his buddy Erwin.

A lilting juvenilia robustly interpolates expressionistic portraiture and vignettes (there are some very impressive close-ups both in still and in motion should be attributed to the young but ingenious film crew) in all the larking and perambulating, PEOPLE ON Sunday can still turn heads not just as a chirpy comedy, but also, a counter-time escapist prose because unfortunately we cannot blot out the fact that something egregiously sinister was incubating in that touchy era and that particular country.

Five non-professional actors star in this tale of a typical Sunday idyll in and around Berlin. We meet taxi driver Erwin Splettstober, wine salesman Wolfgang von Waltershausen, music store clerk Brigitte Borchert, film extra Christl Ehlers, and model Annie Schreyer, attractive young people who are looking to relax on a sunny Sunday. The first four travel out to the country for a frolic in and around a lake, during which romantic attachments are formed and lost. This is cut together with documentary footage of average German citizens enjoying their Sunday in various ways.

This hard-to-classify effort has a stellar line-up behind the scenes: Billy Wilder and Curt Siodmak worked on the screenplay, the direction was by Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer, and an uncredited Fred Zinnemann worked on various aspects of the movie, as well. The cinematography, although primitive and obvious in its trickery (I'm thinking of the often reflected light creating a sun-dappled effect on the actors' faces), has a modernity and immediacy seldom seen in films of the time. I think my favorite sequence of the film was a montage of close-up faces, of all shapes and sizes, of people around the lake. Recommended.

This silent semi-documentary boasts quite a remarkable roster of young talent behind the camera: Billy Wilder, writing his first screenplay; Curt and Robert Siodmak at the helm, aided by contributions from Edgar G. Ulmer and Fred Zinnemann – all of them still in their twenties, all at the beginning of notable careers. The most interesting aspect in front of the camera is the shots of everyday life in Berlin immediately before Adolf Hitler's meteoric rise to power. Many of the people you see going about their ordinary, everyday lives – including possibly the young leads – will have participated in the war into which Hitler would plunge their country in nine short years – or been consigned to concentration camps from which they'd never emerge.

The plot is virtually non-existent: a couple of young men take a couple of young girls to the park for a little frolicking in the lake (and something a little more intense for one couple). The characters are curiously remote, making it difficult for the audience to get to know – or like – them. They are no heroes or villains as such – although there is an air of callousness about the men – so perhaps in a way, this apparent decision to keep at the audience at arm's length can be seen as one of the film's strengths – a reflection of people the way they are (the leads were all non-actors, plucked from obscurity for their brief moment of film stardom before returning back to lives of anonymity). This sense of emotional detachment persists even when the film reaches its most sensuous moments, possibly because Wilder et al fail to decide whether they are telling us a story about people as a group or people as individuals and thus devote inadequate time and attention to both.

Some of the people commenting on this movies mention the fact that it was made only three years before Hitler came to power. While this is true, it is a historical misunderstanding to think that in 1929, when the film was conceived and shot, Hitler was inevitably looming at the political horizon in Germany. In fact, in the Weimar republic of the late 20s there was good reason to believe, that the worst was over for Germany after the chaotic post-WWI-period. The economy had somewhat stabilized, the political circumstances were still chaotic, but I guess people had grown accustomed to the fact that the government changed every so often. Germany was not a democracy in the truest sense of the word, but there was a thriving lower-middle class, and that is what the people in the film are meant to represent. There was good reason to believe, that these people would be typical of Germany at this time. To think that the film makers were delusional about the true state of the German state is a judgement that comes out of knowing what happened later.

Thats what makes this film even more special in my thinking. It shows that there could have been potentially another Germany, and that fascism was not the inevitable consequence of the social condition in the early 30s, German national character or what so ever. In fact, I think thats why this master piece is not as well-known as it deserves to be. It does not fit the bill of 1920s Mabuse-style Germany, where Caligari was an early warning of the Nosferatu was the blue-print of a coming dictator etc, all this Kracauer stuff.

Having said that, I would like to point out two additional things about this film, that make it unique. First of all, with its on-location shot, its amateur actors and its next-to-nothing ,yet social realist story, it is a rare fore-runner of the post-war cinema of Italy etc, that has not acknowledged. (Then again, Rosselini et al never saw this film, but then again, where is the "neo" in "neo-realism" coming from.) It also seems to me that this might very likely be the first "indie" movie. "Indie" is of course a very vague term, and what is called "Independent cinema" differs greatly depending on where the critic is coming from. But I personally know of no other movie, that actually made it into the movie houses, that was produced by a handful of non-pros without the support of a studio. Of course, there are the surrealist films etc, but this was a reasonably successful film, not some art experiment. This is a very daring thesis, I know, but so far nobody was able to prove me wrong....

Amazing gem of a movie with Siodmak and Wilder at the helm. You can already perceive the professional touch that was to make them big names in cinema history even if the plot is very simple. Taxi driver Erwin has a conflictual relationship with his partner Annie. Erwin is back from work and he is reluctant to take Annie to the movies. In their scenes together in their tiny apartment, the two are sulking and nasty to each other.

Enters friend Wolf, who just hooked up with Christl for a Sunday date at the lake. Erwin and Wolf start playing cards ignoring Annie in a blatant case of machismo. Worst is to follow on Sunday, when the smitten Christl has the bad idea to bring her best friend, the blonde Brigitte to the date. Wolf is clearly more attracted to Blondie and Christl can just sulk. Erwin is out of the mating game, not only because he is taken but also because he is a boorish buffoon and way less attractive than Wolf.

The movie shows several scenes of people frolicking at the lake and having their portraits taken, which are more interesting as a documentary of the times than the flirting of the young couple. Eventually, Wolf scores with Brigitte, but Christl is not so annoyed anymore when she realizes that Wolf is immediately looking for some other women to flirt with.

The relationship between men and women seems shallow and almost brutal, women dream of love and men just want the first woman available and apart from sex nothing else matters. Pretty shallow, but is it any much better nowadays?

Extraordinary and very simple silent film, put together by some of the most remarkable talents of Twentieth Century Cinema - just read those credits! Within a few years most of these people were in Hollywood, and Hitler had destroyed both the wonderful film industry they had helped build and the joyous Berlin that this film depicts.

The film tells the story of four strangers, two men and two women, enjoying a lazy Sunday by a lake in Berlin. Nothing much seems to happen, but there is a lot going on, as the four interact. There is innocence, the potential for love, the danger of sex, the force of jealousy and the pain of longing. And through it all is the joy of living!

Magnificently shot - largely in extreme close-up - the film allows us a glimpse of Berlin between the wars and it is sad to watch it with the knowledge of what was soon to be. It would have been impossible to make this film with dialogue - the words would have destroyed the nuance and the emotion. It reveals the power of silent cinema.

If the print you see is without a soundtrack, as mine was, then may I recommend playing the Essential Marlene Dietrich during the film. I did this and the combination was unforgettable.

One of the surprising things about this film is the very acute, naturalistic and fundamentally humorous performances from an amateur cast, lacking all the usual strange, exaggerated mannerisms of silent cinema. The other impressive aspect of the film is the beauty of the photography, always playful and probing: the scene where an old man responds to the pompous nationalistic statues in the park is brilliant and affecting, if rather ambiguous. The modern score that was provided in the version I saw was effective and fitting: to be recommended. I agree that it all seems rather unreal, given that it takes place in 1929- yet it strikes me as not so much realistic, as naturalistic: perhaps striving to depict normality in difficult times. A very good and fundamentally humane film, lacking any real plot or suspense, but full of really interesting moments.

Edwin, a taxi driver, lives with Annie, a neurasthenic model. They plan to spend Sunday at the Nikolassee beach with Wolfgang, an officer, gentleman, antiquarian, gigolo, at the moment a wine salesman.

This film is something scripted and something of a documentary, mixed together. In a way, it is sort of like "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City", only with a plot added. And that is not a bad thing.

Most impressive is just how many big names worked on this. The Siodmak brothers (Curt and Robert), Billy Wilder (writer), Edgar G. Ulmer (producer), Fred Zinnemann (cinematography) and Eugen Schüfftan. These are some of the biggest names of their time, and most came to America and changed it for the better. The credits in some way overshadow the actual film.

This offbeat German film is about as apolitical as you can get for a film made in Germany during the 1930s. It explores the interactions between working-class people enjoying a Sunday afternoon relaxing before starting the taxing work week again. An interesting piece of the German social process of the early 30s. The film highlights how pleasant life could be on a weekend before Germany became over-politicized and militaristic. It is really a great piece to hold in contrast to the later, propagandistic films that came out by the hundreds later in Germany's cinematic history.

Marvellous late German silent that anticipates the Italian neo-realists, although I note some claim that this is not realistic at all and may even be showing struggling Berlin through rose tinted glasses. I'm not sure; those fantastic city sequences seem real enough and perhaps the regularly intoned opinion that Hitler was lurking in the shadows of a dispirited people, is itself a little fanciful. In any event this is a great little film filled with fantastic shots, moving street shots of and from moving trams, poetic close-ups of the young folk and a great sense of landscape at the lakeside. As usual with me and silent movies, I seem to get captions I don't need because the action is so obvious and whole sequences of back and forth dialogue left untitled. But just to watch the imagery is good enough and the little trysts, arguments, upsets and loving looks need no titles at all.

I am certain that if I had seen this movie in the United States in 1929, when the movie was first released, I would have moved to Berlin. I would have packed my bags, said good bye to my relatives and acquaintances and hopped the first ship heading to Germany. This movie not only showcases Berlin, but showcases a cast that is equally charming ... and talented. This movie is proof that acting is an art, and with proper direction just about anyone who wants to can become an actor. And that's the way it should be because acting is about being, and being has to do with feeling, and if you have the feeling, then the acting comes naturally ... if you want to do it. The story is simple ... five people spending time together in Berlin. This movie makes me feel like going back to Berlin now.

On a Sunday, four young befriended people make an excursion to the lake Wannsee in Berlin to spend their free time in the sun with boat trips, bathing and flirting.

This low budget production demands to remain at the surface of everyday life and to show certain scenes, coincidences and trivialities of it. It is mostly interested in the details and shows the other side of the hectic, restless Berlin - the peace of a summerly Sunday. Here, the people are removed from the daily rush, and it is discernible how the makers agree with their protagonists. They celebrate the self-confidence of the young generation - which is not yet overshadowed by the big crisis at the beginning of the 1930s - and demonstrate the physical joy of life, the carefreeness and playfulness. The other side of this urban way of life is, which apparently only banks on superficialness and the momentary, promiscuity and the wounds coming from this, the harshness and the cold of changing feelings. It's cynically depicted in one long tracking shot over tree-tops (indicating symbolically sexual intercourse) that ends at a pile of thoughtlessly ditched trash.

Directed by Robert and Curt Siodmak from a screenplay by Billy Wilder, and with the participation of Edgar G. Ulmer, MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG is a drama filmed over four Sundays in 1929, involving a series of young men and women who flirt with one another, spend time at the beach, enjoy the pleasures of the recreational areas in and around Berlin, and resolve to meet the next Sunday. The plot is gossamer-thin, involving a series of sensual encounters between the semiprofessional actors; the camera focuses on their lips, their bodies and their clothing. Even in the most mundane situations there can be some kind of sexual exchange. More interestingly, the film offers fascinating glimpses of Berlin in the pre-Hitler era; the gorgeous eighteenth and nineteenth century architecture; the laid-back lifestyle of a people living their leisure time to the full; the camera pans of the stores, including a surfeit of Jewish businesses; and the teeming beaches and streets full of people blissfully unaware of what was to follow in the next decade. The film is almost prelapsarian in tone, portraying a world upon which - to use a term familiar in another socio-historical context - the sun appeared never to set.

In France ,Marcel Carné released his first film ,a short ,at about the same time:it was called "Nogent ou l'Eldorado du Dimanche" and it depicted the Parisians' life ,leaving the city for the banks of the Marne river ,spending a wonderful sunny day,then waiting for the next Sunday...

Carné's work was only a short (15 min) whereas Siodmak/Ulmer's film is about one hour and a quarter long.But the subject is the same.The main difference lies in the fact that,being much longer,the script writers could introduce characters .As an user has already pointed out,its games of love and jealousy in the sun ,the picnic and the pedal boat predate Jean Renoir's "Une Partie de Campagne" by six years.But Maupassant's short story was then and "Menschen am Sonntag" is now.Its documentary side is absorbing and should appeal to historians.

With "Menschen" ,a great director,too often forgotten or overlooked,Siodmak was born.Almost everything the man directed -not only the mind-boggling film noirs of the forties but the French ones ("Mister Flow" "Mollenard" "Pièges" ) and the German ones (this one,"Stürme der Leidenschaft" "Brennendes Geheimnis") as well- demands to be watched.

As everyone else here has explained, this film (People on Sunday)was done by a group of young Germans who later went on to stellar careers in film, not in Germany. I saw it screened at the Castro theatre in San Francisco where it was accompanied by a new musical score on the superb Wurlitzer house organ. A real treat. Also, this is possibly only the second or third time this film has been shown publicly in the U.S. The original film did not survive WWII intact, and the musical score was lost completely. What we have has been assembled from the remaining fragments found in Germany and various countries around Europe. An excellent reconstruction never the less.

But what fascinated me about this film is what you don't see. This is Germany in 1930. They've just come out of a devastating economic post-war period, and they're newly into the world-wide depression. Hitler is lurking in the wings, waiting for his big chance. Yet we see hordes of happy people in Berlin living simple pleasant lives. It's eerie. This is more of a tone poem than a filmic documentary, as they imply when they point out that that the cast is not professional actors. So in that sense it's strange.

But we get to see lots of daily street life in between-the-wars Germany, which is fascinating. We see the primitive technology. I did not see one airplane in the whole film. And as we watch, we wonder; did these young people march gleefully off to war, or did they flee to the west? Were they suckered in by Hitler, or did they just go along without thinking about anything? We see very little of the grinding poverty and desperation which Hitler was able to exploit, so I'm a bit skeptical about the supposed realism of the film. We don't see the ground that made a totalitarian dictatorship possible. The whole social environment we see on the screen is so benign and content, that I'm wondering what these young filmmakers were really thinking. Were they out of touch, indulging in wishful thinking, or just young and inept? These young film makers were rebelling against the Hollywoodish German film industry, which makes their artful but shallow film all the more perplexing.

So if you want one version of a stark historical period, with no great message, this film is worthy. But I think the real value here is what is not said and what is not shown.

This is probably my 6th favourite Silent Film of all time.

The List:

1. The General (1926) 2. City Lights (1931) 3. The Birth of a Nation (1915) 4. Metropolis (1927) 5. Battleship Potempkin (1925) and 6. People On Sunday

This probably one of the best movies to watch on a rainy day. Though an experimental film it is surprisingly entertaining with minimal script. Good direction, acting. Though the real hero of the movie is cinematography with captures Berlin and its people and excellent background score which hold your interest when the story seems to drag a bit. This lesser know gem is must for all film fans and must for fans of Billy Wilder(Script Writer).

I happened on this film whilst researching for a book - and what a find!

This is 1930 and people had only just discovered how to make films. No sound. But this movie tells its superb little story in images and facial expressions. It's really marvellous to see how this is achieved. A very superior piece of film making - even before they really learned how to do it. This is Art.

Somehow - through just beautiful photography, excellent acting and editing People on Sunday does its work. It captures a mystique about Berlin in the 1930's. What a place it must have been! It also tells us much about the human condition in and around the metropolis. And all this in a silent movie. Fantastic!

This is a film to watch again and again, a wonderful movie!

In a few short years after the release of February 1930's "People on Sunday," the handful of people involved in making the German-produced film would become some of Hollywood's premier filmmakers. These Germans and Austrians, on the heels of Adolf Hitler's rise in power in early 1933, emigrated to America and found jobs in film. At the time of production, "People On Sunday," was one of many experimental silents so popular in Europe and proved to be a resume project for those who knew each other and who aspired to break into the Berlin movie scene.

Securing funding from Heinrich Nebenzai and his Nero-Film Studios, a rather successful movie production company, the group set out to create a film showcasing their abilities to create a feature film. Set in the city of Berlin, "People On Sunday" has a simple plot of four friends, two males and two females, as well as one wife who remains at home, making plans to go to one of the spacious parks nearby with a beach on their day off. The interpersonal relationships of the four are displayed with bits of flirting, laughing, lounging, swimming, and everyday stuff (except for a brief encounter in the woods by one amorous couple). The movie's prologue states this is "A Film Without Actors. These five people had never appeared in front of a camera before. Today they're all back at their own jobs."

The lone veteran of filmmaking on the project was cinematographer Eugen Schufftan, a future Oscar winner for his camera work in 1961's "The Hustler" with Paul Newman. Working with German director Frtiz Lang on such films as 1924's "Die Nibelungen" and 1927's "Metropolis," Schufftan came up with his popular 'Schufftan Process' of special effects mirror painting. He also was an assistant to Abel Gance in 1927's "Napoleon," among other productions

Robert Siodmak, one of two directors for "People On Sunday,"was hired at Universal Studios to direct mostly lower-budgeted films, including classics such as 1944's "Phantom Lady" and 1946's "The Killers." Edgar G. Ulmer, the other director, also saw several notable movies in America under his direction, including 1934 "The Black Cat" with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and 1945 "Detour," both low budget affairs.

Fred Zinnemann, the assistant cameraman to Schufftan, a recent grad from film school, had picked up several small jobs in German movies before his involvement in "People on Sunday." In the United State, Zinnemann was one of Hollywood's most influential figures, directing 1952's "High Noon," 1953's "From Here to Eternity," and 1966's "A Man For All Seasons," among many other Oscar-winning films.

And Billy Wilder, a former newspaper reporter, and a film fanatic, was dipping his toes into scriptwriting. He's credited with writing the treatment of "People on Sunday," and went on to script several successful movies in the 1930s, including 1939's "Ninotchka," with Greta Garbo. He turned to directing in the late 1930s, and is one of the directors highlighted in the bestselling book, "The 15 Geniuses Behind The Lens: How the Greatest Film Directors Shaped the Movies We See Today." Films such as "Double Indemnity," "Sunset Boulevard," "Some Like It Hot," and "The Apartment" are just a few of his many important movies.

"People on Sunday" was a huge hit in German when first released. The movie was part of the "New Objectivity" genre introduced by G. W. Pabst's groundbreaking film, 1925's "Joyless Street." Although Pabst's movie was a dark yet realistic portrayal of city life and its residents, "People On Sunday" reflected a happier version of everyday life, heavily influencing later Italian Neorealism and French New Wave cinema on the Continent. As a 'city symphony' film, "People on Sunday" showed relatively happy Berliners at the sunset of freedom before the Nazification of that capital city as well as Germany. Just that alone makes this a valuable semi-documentary on Berliners on their lifestyle that would never be possible again for some generations.