Throughout her life, Asta Nielsen (Maria Lechner) always said that she failed to see the attraction and talent of Greta Garbo (Greta Rumfort).
The dark-haired woman waiting in the butcher shop line who is often mistaken for Marlene Dietrich is actually Hertha von Walther. She had a much larger role in the original uncut version of the film. She can also be seen as the lab assistant in Les Mystères d'une âme (1926) with Werner Krauss.
Despite not being in this film, many contemporary writers continue to insist that Marlene Dietrich was in it. They also wrongly claim that Garbo was 19 years-old when she was actually 21.
This is considered to be an example of Straßenfilm ("Street Film"), a sub-genre of films that flourished in Germany during the Weimar period.
Despite denials to the contrary throughout most of her life, Marlene Dietrich was indeed in the film. This is confirmed in the book "The Girls. Sappho Goes to Hollywood" by Diana McLellan. The book also claims it was confirmed by film librarian, Madeline Matz and by Dietrich herself later in in life to her friend and biographer, David Bret. As the book states: "Not only was she in the film, in a sizable supporting role, but the scene in which Garbo actually faints into Dietrich's arms proves that Marlene and Greta knew each other, touched each other, and trusted each other completely-at least for a while, in their youth." and: "David told me that she had even described a scene she had acted in: 'Yes, and in the end, I killed the butcher,' she said to him with a small chuckle. This was puzzling. I had seen her character storm crazily into the butcher shop, and, a little later, the dead butcher, with his bloody head lolling against a window. But no actual murder! Combing literature about the film's director, G.W. Pabst, I finally learned this: The ax murder perpetrated by the woman known to filmographers for years only as 'Maria's friend' had been so bloody that it was cut by the German censors. In other words, Marlene had to have been there to know about it. That unbilled black-haired young woman in Pabst's film, to whom others later gave other names, is Marlene Dietrich."