Die Unehelichen

There has been a rediscovery of the neglected German director Gerhard Lamprecht in recent years, especially four of his silents which were put out on DVD in 2012 by FilmMuseum.Lamprecht's most famous work is the early sound version of Emil And The Detectives, remade a number of times including a live action Disney adaptation in the 60s.Lamprecht was,at least in the 1920s, a socially conscious realist director concerned with the problems of former convicts, the unemployed, and here illegitimate children.His stories do not avoid the temptation of melodrama with its twists and turns, and here there is an open appeal to the emotions as we see what happens to three little children being abused by a couple of heartless foster parents worthy of the Thenardiers in Les Miserables. But the director as in the child based Emil and the Detectives seems to have a special sensitivity for youth actors.Ralph Ludwig as Peter deserves to be remembered along with Jean Pierre Leaud in The 400 Blows and Edmund Meschke in Germany Year Zero among such characterizations.