From Morn to Midnight

From Morn to Midnight (German: Von morgens bis mitternachts) is a 1920 German silent expressionist film directed by Karlheinz Martin based on the 1912 play From Morning to Midnight by Georg Kaiser.

The cashier goes to the lady's hotel and offers her his money, if she agrees to leave with him, but she only laughs at him and threatens to call her son.

The cashier attends a six day bicycle race and offers a large sum of money for a special prize.

Disappointed, the cashier leaves and goes to a dance where he gets a private lounge where he tries to seduce two girls with his money.

The film was produced in 1920 by theatre director Karlheinz Martin, a few months after the release of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

He had already directed on stage the 1912 eponymous play by Georg Kaiser before World War I.

The stage-like painted sets, the costumes and the performance of the actors form an artistic unity and are characteristic of Expressionism.

From Morn to Midnight is one of the first German films that address the lure of "the great world" and "the street".

It was long considered lost until 1959 when a copy was found at the Tokyo National Film Center in Japan.

It was acquired by the National Film Archive of the German Democratic Republic and was screened for the first time in Germany in East Berlin in 1963.

Full film
Ernst Deutsch as the cashier