Keetje Tippel

Summary

Keetje Tippel (Cathy Tippel) is a historical character, who lived in Amsterdam during the 19th century.

Keetje came from the northern province of Frisia, with her father, mother and small sisters. Continually beset by difficulties, she succeeds in working her way up from extreme poverty, to eventually find romance and wealth. Forced into prostitution by her mother, in later life she proves more than a match for the men in her life.

The film endeavoured to make a version of the histoire intime of Neel Doff as visually attractive as possible. Doff, when she was a rich Belgian widow, wrote a number of novels which paid a great deal of attention to working-class life in Amsterdam, which included great hardship, and for women, the threat of prostitution.