Garbo's appearance in the film, aged 19, has long been known to buffs, but Dietrich, until her death in 1992, publicly denied having any association with it. Certainly there is no mention of her name in the film's credits or in the few written records of its making. But in the course of researching Hollywood's lesbian sub-culture for her new book The Girls, McLellan went to see the remnants of the film (no original or complete print survives) at the Library of Congress in Washington. Set on a single street in Vienna, The Joyless Street chronicles the collapse of the German middle classes in the decay and hyperinflation following the First World War.