This classic Austrian film has numerous different titles. The print which I have seen is entitled SCHREI NACH LIEBE (CRY FOR LOVE). But it is better known as WIENERINNEN (WOMEN OF VIENNA, or sometimes WOMEN OF VIENNA IN THE SHADOWS OF A GREAT CITY). It is possibly the most brilliant film ever made in Austria. It was the first feature film of the director, the remarkable Kurt Steinwendner (born 1920 in Vienna), an intellectual who was strongly influenced by Surrealism, Picasso, Miro, and Italian Neo-Realism. The film is so astounding in its power, its passion, and its imagery, that it ranks as a world classic. The cinematography and direction are so amazing that it is difficult to describe them, and the performances are of the same jaw-dropping intensity. The film consists of four separate stories in succession, each one a highly intense and harrowing tale of wrongs done to a woman. The acting is simply incredible, not just by the women themselves but also by the supporting cast, such as the mesmerising performance by Maria Eis as Anni's mother in Part One; rarely has such a close study of a woman driven to madness been seen. Apparently there was a fifth story filmed, but it did not survive in the version which I have seen. Part Two is highly surreal and portrays a young woman puppeteer who is in love with both her puppets and the children before whom she performs in Vienna's schools. The filming is done in extreme angles and extreme lighting, a mixture of expressionism and Neo-Realism. It often has a documentary feel. All the stories are set amongst the working class in what is called 'the Other Vienna', a shabby and crumbling world of rail yards, factories, and in story Number Four, a gigantic grain elevator. The portrayals of the deceits and crimes perpetrated against the women of the stories are so searing and disturbing that this is one of those films one can never forget, or as some would say, 'never unsee'. It is amazing that such a masterpiece could be made so soon after the War. Just imagine what Austrian cinema could have become if the Nazis had never happened and the cinema of that country had had continuity and, of course, had not lost all its Jews. After all, every major Austrian writer was Jewish, and even Hugo von Hofmannsthal was half Jewish. The incredible performance as Olga in Part Four by Margit Herzog was by an actress who was probably Jewish; this was her first film, she made another the next year with the same director, and one more film for TV in 1963, so she only ever appeared in three films. One therefore knows nothing else about her, not even her dates of birth and death. IMDb knows nothing more of her, nor does anyone else appear to do so. Some of the supporting cast of these films were not professional actors, and this may have been the case with her. The stories were written jointly by Steinwendner and August Rieger (also known as Jean C. Aurive), whose wife, the actress Elizabeth Stemberger, was electrifying as the girl of the first story, Anni. This was her first film, when she was 24, and she went on appearing in films until 1968; IMDb has no dates for her either.
