Beautiful, detached, laconic, consumptive Lily Brest is a streetwalker with few clients. She loves her idle boyfriend Raoul who gambles away what little she earns. The town's power broker, called the rich Jew, discovers she is a good listener, so she's soon busy. Raoul imagines grotesque sex scenes between Lily and the Jew; he leaves her for a man. Her parents, a bitter Fascist who is a cabaret singer in drag and her wheelchair-bound mother, offer no refuge. Even though all have a philosophical bent, the other whores reject Lily because she tolerates everyone, including men. She tires of her lonely life and looks for a way out. Even that act serves the local corrupt powers.
Ingrid Caven
as Lily Brest
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
as Raoul
Klaus Löwitsch
as Jude
Jean-Claude Dreyfus
as Zwerg
Debria Kalpataru
as Marie-Antoinette
Annemarie Düringer
as Luise Müller
Adrian Hoven
as Herr Müller
Boy Gobert
as Polizeichef
Ulli Lommel
as Der kleine Prinz
Irm Hermann
as Emma
Ila von Hasperg
as Violet
Peter Chatel
as Mann / Thomas
