G. W. Pabst’s provocative adaptation of Margarethe Böhme's notorious novel, in which the naive daughter (Louise Brooks) of a middle class pharmacist is seduced by her father's assistant, only to be disowned and sent to a repressive home for wayward girls. She escapes, searches for her child, and ends up in a high-class brothel, only to turn the tables on the society which had abused her.