A filmmaker from the socially conscious "realism school" of the late German silent era, Piel Jutzi's most important achievements were Mother Krause's Trip to Happiness (1929) and Berlin-Alexanderplatz, both fatalistic slices of life from the depression years in Germany (and both remade by a latter-day German realist R. W. Fassbinder). Taken from Alfred Doblin's novel, Berlin-Alexanderplatz is less pessimistic (and pathological) than Fritz Lang's M, also 1931 and set in a similar underworld milieu. Rather, its raw, rowdy street spirit is inspired by the proletarian realism of the artist Heinrich Zille. As Doblin's Franz Biberkopf, Heinrich George is the embodiment of a Zille character: a peddler who despairs of making an honest living and becomes involved with a gang. His girl is murdered, he loses everything, but he ends up an honest man.