A well-dressed lady thief (Betty Amann) steals a precious stone from a jewellery shop. The aged jeweller prefers to let the young woman go, but the policeman who catches her explains he is obliged to pursue the case further. She tries to seduce the policeman (Gustav Frohlich), and he gradually succumbs to her charms, but her criminal background dooms their relationship when an argument leads to murder...

One of the last great German Expressionist films of the silent era, Joe May's 'Asphalt' is a love story set in the traffic-strewn Berlin of the late 1920s. Starring the delectable Betty Amann in her most famous leading role, 'Asphalt' is a luxuriously produced Ufa classic where tragic liaisons and fatal encounters are shaped alongside the constant roar of traffic.

Betty Amann's salacious sensuality, May's grand direction, the spectacular sets by Erich Kettelhut, and the photography of Günther Rittau make this largely unknown film a major rediscovery. Until recently, Asphalt was available only in a shortened version with English-language intertitles. In 1993 the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek (Berlin) discovered a print of Asphalt at the Gosfilmofond archive in Moscow which appeared to have been struck from the original negative. The chronology of scenes in this print differs from existing versions and there are extra scenes together with the hitherto-unknown German intertitles.