Das Mädchen Vom Moorhof (aka The Girl From The Marsh Croft) (1935)

Set in an insular rural community in Northern Germany, a young maid (Hansi Knoteck) who has borne a child out of wedlock is shunned by the community after she files a paternity suit against a respected farmer (Erwin Klietsch). When she is taken in by a family, the young son (Kurt Fischer Fehling) finds himself drawn to her although he is engaged to another girl (Ellen Frank). Based on the novel by Selma Lagerlof and directed by Douglas Sirk (WRITTEN ON THE WIND). Already working in the melodrama genre that would gain him acclaim when he emigrated to the U.S., Sirk displays his empathy for the societal outcasts and misfits that would continue to be one of his trademarks during his period at Universal studios. I suppose a dyed in the wool auteurist might try to make a claim that this was an exceptional film but honestly, it's just a well made bucolic soap opera. Sirk's greatest and more complex works lay ahead of him, he's a budding artist here, not yet the Master of Melodrama (hey, if Hitchcock can be the Master of Suspense). With Lina Carstens and Franz Stein.