Scandinavian film (1952)

cinema. In the following year, when Tobis had installed sound apparatus at Rasunda, two films with sound-on-track were made. In Charlotte Lbwenskbld Gustaf Molander turned again to a Selma Lagerlof novel describing the spiritual conflict of a young priest and his struggle between loyalty to a fiancee and loyalty to the Christian faith. Made in the style of a silent film, it included only a brief passage of dialogue. The other film, which used dialogue throughout, was For Hennes Skull, written and directed by Paul Merzbach, with dialogue by Bengt Idestam-Almquist and Ragnar Allberg. Gosta Ekman played the part of a furrier, who becomes a revue artist and is sought after in America. The film had little significance beyond its proof that in Sweden, as elsewhere, the microphone was a cramping influence on the movement natural to the medium. Sjostrom marked his return from America in 1930 with the production of a film which seemed by comparison adult and mature. Markurells i Wadkbping was adapted from a novel by Hjalmar Bergman about a father who discovers that his beloved son is not his son at all, and it gave Sjostrom who played the leading part an opportunity for one of his strongly developed character studies. With Julius Jaenzon as his cameraman he succeeded in giving the film a refreshing freedom of movement, and showed no tendency to be overawed by the presence of the microphone or to exaggerate the importance of sound. For Hennes Skull and Markurells i Wadkbping were made in language versions, a practice then in fashion and most actively conducted at Joinville in Paris. During one period at Rasunda, versions in German, French and English were made, the groups of actors moving in turn on to the set. This device to increase the international circulation of a film was, however, no more successful in Sweden than it was anywhere else, and it ended with the departure of Paul Merzbach. One further attempt was made by the Svensk Filmindustri to produce a work on the scale of its major films. In some respects En Natt (193 1) stands almost alone among Swedish films. It was clearly influenced by the work of the Russian directors, a point underlined by the fact that Gosta Hellstrom, who acted as assistant director to Gustaf Molander, had studied in Russia in 1929 under Eisenstein. His enthusiasm for the Russian technique infected the cameraman, Ake Dahlqvist, with the result that much of the film echoes Mother and The End of St. Petersburg in treatment. The story, by Ragnar Hylten-Cavallius, was sympathetic to these effects, since it concerned an incident in the struggle of the Finns against the Russians. A prisoner of war, given parole for the night, spends it with the Russian mill-girl he loves, and when morning comes her attempts to detain him are overcome by his unflinching purpose to return to the firing squad. Molander's direction held some finely lyrical moments, as in the sequence describing the return of the soldier in the grey morning light, and the Russianinfluenced sequences gave the film a lively visual interest. En Natt was the last of the ambitious Swedish films during the 'thirties. The producers recognized that, because of language limitations, there was little prospect 19