It was made under contract for Universum Film AG (UFA), stars Lil Dagover and Willy Birgel and also features Maria von Tasnady, and premièred in 1936.

The film had two premières, on 27 June 1936 at the annual cinema owners' convention in Dresden, and on 24 July 1936 at the Gloria-Palast in Berlin, after which it was placed on general release.

[3][4] At a New Year's Eve party in New York, Hanna Müller (Maria von Tasnady) is informed that her husband has been found dead in Central Park, presumably a suicide.

Meanwhile, the young son they left behind in an orphanage, Peter, is adopted by Erich Garvenberg (Willy Birgel), a famous conductor, and his wife Charlotte (Lil Dagover), who is having an affair with an astrologer, Gregor Carl-Otto.

[3][5] The film contrasts American with German culture and "a decadent past" (the Weimar Republic) with a "healthy, hopeful present" (the Third Reich) that reaffirms the values of the "old" (pre-Weimar) Germany.

[8] The interiors, by Erich Kettelhut, a co-designer on Metropolis, have symbolic force;[9] in particular, Charlotte Garvenberg is surrounded by mirrors, suggesting narcissism, preoccupied with her own happiness at the expense of her husband, so that her fate in the film "in a way, rehearses the conditions under which [Weimar] culture came to an end", in selfishness, "erotic obsessions" and "empty rituals".

[11] In Schlußakkord, Kurt Schröder's score is reminiscent in style of later work by Erich Korngold and incorporates several excerpts of classical music, including radio broadcasts and gramophone records.

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was performed for the soundtrack by the orchestra of the Berlin State Opera with well-known soloists including Hellmuth Melchert and Erna Berger.

[17] Finally, the closing scene is at a performance of Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabaeus, and the camera moves from the newly united family to the triumphant angels on the ceiling of the concert hall.

[4][18] The Film-Kurier review praised Sierck for "manag[ing] to blend the various emotional and affective elements of the plot into a moving musical unity" with "appropriate emphases" and "sustaining dramatic tension from start to finish.