Abschied (1930) aka FAREWELL was the first sound film by UFA film studio and only the second film directed by the great Robert Siodmak; best known for The Killers (1946) & Criss Cross (1949) as well as the second film by the great writer Emeric Pressburger; known for The Red Shoes (1948), A Matter of Life and Death (1946) aka Stairway to Heaven and I Know Where I'm Going! (1945).
As far as sound films go, it is packed with lovely music from a pianist lodger who delights himself and listeners with brief jazz and popular song riffs. We also hear electric sweeper sounds, shouting, doors slamming, singing, humming, whistling and various conversations.
Like Grand Hotel there are fascinating characters with their own lives, intersections, hopes, dreams, passions and stories that are talked about. Yes, these people are poor and the Great Depresssion makes it hard to find any job, let alone a great job.
SPOILERS: Our central characters are boyfriend Winkler (Aribert Mog) and girlfriend Hella (Brigitte Horney), who are not only in love but hoping to save the money necessary to get married, some day. The seemingly small but soon to be momentous conflict is that Winkler was offered a wonderful job in another city, far away, at near triple the pay and he is leaving town tomorrow which he hasn't told Hella.
This crack in her trust of him causes her to channel her anger into wanting to make him jealous. So she tells him, fine she is going out for a good time and leaves! He does not know she has gone into debt to by a new dress that she cannot afford just to make him happy and she leaves to buy a matching hat hoping to impress him upon her return.
Meanwhile, after she has goes his anger boils over and he packs and leaves that night before she returns. He settles all his debts and heads to the train station. When Hella returns she is devastated to find him gone. He did not wait. He left no note. They don't have a chance to talk of their possible future.
The other neighbors in the boardinghouse all have opinions into what went wrong, or maybe how selfish Winkler was, how evil, he was no good etc.
One of the unemployed characters has the bad habit of stealing small items, cigarettes, aspirin, etc. When he searches Winkler's room, he finds a gold ring left on top of a dresser and pockets it. Later when he hears the others bashing his friend Winkler he finally interrupts with a story that Winkler had told him that he asked after Hella, he wished her well, in fact he gave this man a ring to give to Hella for him.
Everyone is stunned into silence and one-by-one they say they always knew Winkle was a good and loving man. Hope returns to all that it will somehow work out. They slowly drift away and Hella is left alone with the ring when she notices it is engraved, "Wear it forever, forget me never. Hella."
(My conclusion is, that this ring was one she had given him before and he took it off not wanting her any longer. On his last night she had went out without him. The relationship was forever over.)
BUT! The studio did not want a down beat ending as the director Siodmak did. So, a happier ending was filmed by the studio, without the director's help. In this final scene it's a year later and at a bar several of the neighbors talk how the couple had got married and moved away together and are happy planning their family. For me, both endings could work out. Life happens and we learn by our mistakes. This film got us inside a boardinghouse and exposed us to some interesting people sharing their lives.