People on Sunday
1930 film directed by Robert Siodmak and Edgar George Ulmer
People on Sunday (German: Menschen am Sonntag; full title Menschen am Sonntag, ein Film ohne Schauspieler. or People on Sunday: A Film Without Actors) is a 1930 German silent drama film directed by Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer from a screenplay by Billy Wilder, based on a reportage by Curt Siodmak, Robert's younger brother. The film follows a group of residents of Berlin on a summer's day during the interwar period. Hailed as a work of genius, it is a pivotal film in the development of German cinema and Hollywood. The film features the talents of Eugen Schüfftan (cinematography), Billy Wilder (screenplay) and Fred Zinnemann (cinematography assistant).
Production
The film is subtitled "a film without actors" and was filmed on Sundays in the summer of 1929. The actors were amateurs whose day jobs were those that they portrayed in the film—the opening titles inform the audience that these actors have all returned to their normal jobs by the time of the film's release in February 1930. They were part of a collective of young Berliners who wrote and produced the film on a shoestring. This lightly scripted, loosely observational work of New Objectivity became a surprise hit.
People on Sunday is notable for its portrayal of daily life in Berlin before Adolf Hitler became Chancellor and as an early work by writer/director Billy Wilder before he moved to the United States to escape from Hitler's Germany.
“People on Sunday” enters the record as 1930 film directed by Robert Siodmak and Edgar George Ulmer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what People, Sunday and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“People on Sunday” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, People, Sunday and film provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q315896. VIAF identifies the subject as 192434419. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930 and 1929.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “People on Sunday”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow People on Sunday primary sources, People on Sunday archive and People research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “People on Sunday”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “People on Sunday” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.