Fishy kettle tale… Der var engang (1922), with Neil Brand, Danish Film Institute streaming

Back to the endless database of digitalised Danish film for this comic fairy tale from Carl Theodor Dreyer which owes a little to early Lubitsch perhaps but is no surprise after the Dane’s earlier film, the magically real Parsons Widow (1920). If Der var engang (Once Upon a Time) does not match up to the almost perfectly executed Prästänkan, that’s partly because it is a more overt fantasy and because significant sections are still missing even from this 2002 restoration.

 

Around half of the film is lost but here the title cards have been restored and sense is made using stills from the film and additional intertitles. The main source for the intertitles was a title list from the archives of the Swedish film censorship office and the whole piece is now sequenced well enough to still enchant especially with the aid of Neil Brand’s expert score which smooths over the missing segments and the odd uncompleted or fully rehearsed moment.

 

Based on Holger Drachmann's 1883 play, itself drawing from Hans Christian Andersen's Svinedrengen (The Swineherd) and William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, it’s a fable about a Prince and a Princess who need to find the level of their love, one too much a stranger to her real self, confounded by the comforts of her position and lost in her privilege. Yes, indeed, this is very much another Play for Today…

The King of Illyria (Peter Jerndorff)

The story revolves around the Prince of Denmark – no, not that one – and his attempts to woo the especially obstinate Princess of Illyria. Unlike his distant relative, he’s a decisive man of action who, rather more quickly than in three acts and two scenes of dithering, decides that a play’s the thing wherein to prick the conscience of the King’s daughter.  And what a “conscience” it is, certainly more absent than present.

 

I would rather marry a beggar… Be happy I am not having you hanged!

 

As the film starts, we see a succession of hopefuls competing for the hand of the Princess, played by Clara Pontoppidan, here as Clara Wieth, who enjoyed over sixty years in cinema from 1910 to 1972 and featured in Dreyer’s Leaves from the Book of Satan (1920). All of them fail miserably as, bored to tears she dismisses their attempts to entertain and attract; even the rather camp chap who dances. Then it’s the Prince of Denmark’s turn and with handsome Svend Methling in the role surely, she’s going to be impressed but far from it, he only angers his would-be fiancé and the look on the long face of his loyal retainer, Kasper Smokehat (Røghat in Danish, played by Hakon Ahnfelt-Rønne) says it all…

Smokehat and the Prince

The Princess is not for turning and so it’s time for Denmark to go sulk in the woods with his horse. He is greeted by a mystical peddler – or some-such – who offers him a copper kettle that will show him how to “capture happiness” … With magic on his side our brave hero returns with well-trimmed facial hair to try and capture the hardest heart in all of Illyria.

 

The film looks delicious throughout and no more so than the scenes that follow with the Princess and her ladies in waiting frolicking around the well-topiarised royal gardens. They’re a vision of coordinated fashion and expression setting the Princess in a completely different light; warm and summer freed as compared with glacial palatial. She’s intrigued by the handsome new woodsman with his distracting rattle… and then must have his special kettle even if it means exchanging a kiss…

 

Oh well, it is my duty as Princess to support art…

The Princess is on the right (Clara Pontoppidan)

The Princess decides that the rattle is irresistible as indeed maybe the woodsman and make the exchange… but, as Lady Booby said to Joseph Andrews, “kissing is as a prologue to a play” and before long the kettle is irresistible too even as the second kiss is only rewarded with an image of the Princess’ “true love”, the Prince of Denmark she currently loathes. No such disdain for the woodsman though and, away from prying eyes, he is allowed into the royal rooms… as the dealing moves from hearth to heart.

 

But this Prince has a bigger plan - an elaborate "play" - and sailing through the mists comes a boat carrying his emissaries, a knight who asks if the Princess has reconsidered Denmark’s offer. She has not… but meanwhile the noble Smokehat comes to the King disguised as a knight and not only reveals the Princess’ embarrassment but threatens to order Denmark’s gathering soldiers to attack unless “…the Princess be exiled along with the rogue she prefers!”

 

The Prince in disguise with a magic rattle...

Now, it’s all a bit of a long game, but the King feels he has no option and the Princess is sent to live with the woodsman in a humble cottage whilst he maintains the deception of not being a royal. No interviews with Oprah though, just pot making and the attempt to bring his love down to ground. She’s not the only one who needs lessons in humility as they see the Prince’s own men abusing the poor folk, hanging poachers and other wrong doers.

 

It’s a fairy tale and so you may decide that you know what’s going to happen, it could be Grimm or it could be Disney but either way it’s a trajectory that doesn’t disappoint. This is not the best of Dreyer – it’s hard to tell given the missing footage – but it has its moments and is wonderfully bought to life by the restoration and Neil Brand’s playing which leads our emotional imagination through the stills and title cards that complete the picture.

 

The film can be viewed on the Danish Film Institute site and with those engaging leads, stunning cinematography, Neil’s score and the humorous balance of Smokehat, it is yet another Danish delight.

Yes, your majesty. Two kisses...