The odd couple… Havsgamar (1915)/ Dödskyssen (1916), Victor Sjöström 1912-17, (Part Two)

Moving on a couple of years from Sjöström’s second film, to his 19th and 29th, the director's cinematic technique has evolved and both these relatively short films show elements that would feature in his later feature work. The Sea Vultures (1915) (Havsgamar and also known as Predators of the Sea) is filmed on the same rugged coastline as A Man There Was (1917) and has some of the same ruthless nature vs nurture of the later film.  The protagonists are victims of their circumstances and it takes something truly human to changes the course of their lives, something wicked or, especially love

The Sea Vultures are hunters turned scavengers - a fisherman, Hornung (Rasmus Rasmussen) who, along with his eldest son Birger (John Ekman) are drawn into smuggling by the promise of easy money in hard times. They head out to greet a ship called The Eagle which carries illicit silk on board and, whilst the transaction goes well, they have been spotted by the local customs man, Eijvind Arnold (Richard Lund) who arrests them at gunpoint. Unbeknownst to Hornung, his youngest son, Anton has stowed on board to see what all the excitement is about, he emerges from hiding only to see his father and brother shoot the customs officer and his deputy dead, throwing them overboard before burning their boat and making good their escape.

All at sea

Years later and the two men are unaware of the impact their crime had on Anton (now Nils Elffors) who is tortured by what he saw and known as Mad Anton. But that is only the first step in fate righting their wrongs… Arnold’s son Arvid (also Richard Lund) has grown up and taken his father’s role along with the heart of Hornung’s daughter Gabrielle (Sjöström regular, Greta Almroth).

It’s not a tale full of surprises but it is well told and not lacking in tension and some gruesome retribution. Hornung’s guilt and sense of self-preservation makes him try to keep Gabrielle away from Arvid but theirs is a true love and a love much thicker than blood or water. As Hornung and Birger head out for one last big payday, the new customs officer is there to finish what his father started as Anton, fearing for his sister’s love and safety, makes a timely intervention.

Richard Lund, Greta Almroth and Rasmus Rasmussen

There’s plenty to admire in Henrik Jaenzon’s location cinematography, from sequences at sea to stark silhouettes against the rolling waves and barren rocks. Another scene has the camera pan left from scheming smugglers in one room past a wall – side-on – to show Anton listening at the door. There’s also some committed stunt work from Greta Almroth as she jumps into a boat and proceeds to row it out of the harbour; no wonder the director liked her so much!

Breaking the third wall?

The following year’s Dödskyssen, (The Kiss of Death) couldn’t be more different in style and is a crime caper, quite unlike any of the director’s other films but with narrative variations that would soon be used more extensively in The Phantom Carriage. It is not complete but most of the story and sense survives with the aid of a reconstruction from 2002 and what remains shows the influence of Louis Feuillade’s science detective adventures.

There’s an interesting structure with the story told in flashback by various witnesses to the murder of a doctor right at the start of the film and it’s a complicated tale with Sjöström taking two roles and those missing sections explained with new title cards.

Doctor Monro (Albin Lavén) is found murdered by his maid Anna Harper (Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson) who is the first to be interviewed by the Police Commissioner (Thure Holm). She explains how she found him lying unconscious next to his daughter (Wanda Rothgardt) and how a man she’d never seen before took charge of the situation and called the police.

Witness number two is Chief Engineer Weyler (Victor Sjöström) who was a patient of the Doctor having recently been struggling to complete some top secret plans for his employers. The Doctor had been unable to relieve Weyler’s inexplicable tiredness and it was going to cost him his job as well as his marriage. He was visited by an Engineer called Lebel (also Victor Sjöström) and after realising that they shared a remarkable resemblance the two agreed to swap places so that Weyler could get a break and Lebel could make sure the plans were drawn up on time. Now it is rather fortunate that one shared the other’s skillset… even more so that he could also impersonate him but, details, details… sometimes these things do happen!

Anyway, it is a fun concept and there’s excellent double exposure from cameraman Julius Jaenzon, as Victor’s characters look each other up and down in front of a mirror. As McGuffins go, this is a biggie but it does allow the plot to really take off as Weyler and his Doctor, Dr Adell (Mathias Taube) establish that Doctor Monro has been slowly poisoning his doppelganger. Meanwhile, the vital drawings are disappearing in the night and Weyler and Adell set a trap to find out how and why… things will not be quite as simple as they seem…

               

Just who is the masked man!?

The Kiss of Death is a world away from the previous year’s smugglers’ tale but shows Sjöström’s commercial nous and developing confidence; he was clearly absorbing a lot from France and Hollywood and developing his own distinctive cinematic language. The film was premiered in Stockholm only two weeks before Terje Vigen (1917) and it’s understandably overshadowed by the latter - even had it all survived and been in circulation for as long! That said, at the time, this film represented his breakthrough in France – not surprisingly given the influence and the narrative innovation – and was a big hit overseas being sold to 38 countries.

The Svenska Dagbladet was not alone in being impressed, highlighting the dircetor's acting as much as his skill behind the camera; "Excellent staging... It is Victor Sjöström who simply shines his demanding roles as well as the director. , becomes extremely exciting and interesting."

Along with The Gardener (1912), Ingeborg Holm (1913) and Judaspengar / The Price of Betrayal (1915) the two films above represent the only extant remains from the director's first 30 films and from this point, the survival rate is far higher as the quality rises with some of the defining films of the era. These early survivors do, however, indicate how he began to develop the techniques and themes that were to dominate the golden age of Swedish silent film and beyond. As an actor and filmmaker he was pretty much peerless and I'm sure Selma Lagerlöf would agree even if Mauritz Stiller would not.

Ice cold in Archie… Sir Arne's Treasure (1919)

Every so often a film comes along and just rocks your little watching-on-laptop commuter world. On the Gatwick Express last week I’ve been bowled over by a combination of Julius Jaenzon’s cinematography, Mary Johnson’s acting and Mauritz Stiller’s inspiration.

Johnson’s a Scandi-Gish, delicate and pretty with emotions sourced deep within her tiny core, working their way out in great volcanic bursts that shake her very being: like Lillian she acts with her whole being and her frailty is all too real.

She is driven through this film by the promptings of Stiller in what some see as his greatest. I can’t comment having not seen them all, but he comes close to the heights of his more reputable Swedish (Stiller was Finnish) friend and frequent collaborator, Victor Sjostrom in this powerful, claustrophobic meditation on guilt, love and destiny.

The Scandi-Gish

Then there is the magnificence of Julius Jaenzon’s camerawork as he captures the intimacies of the wide-open spaces as easily as he does the depths of the shadowy interiors. There’s startling use of moving cameras as he tracks characters at key moments: the guard ascending the prison steps to a conflagration with his three prisoners and the heroine’s pursuit of the truth carried in her lover’s blackened heart. Events swirl around and the hopeless humans drift aimlessly among the frozen stone as they try to outlive their destiny.

It’s a contrast to Thomas Graal’s Best Film you have to admit.

Based on The Treasure by Selma Lagerlöf, the story is smaller than Stiller’s epic adaptation of the same author’s Gosta Berling but there’s the same moral range: Man must make his peace with the ultimate arbiter and there is a price to pay for every bad deed.

Three bad men

Here the darkness is not immediately apparent as the three Scottish mercenaries at the heart of the story are seemingly brave and carefree men even when held captive in one of King Johan III’s gaols in seventeenth century Sweden. The men, Sir Archie (Richard Lund), Sir Filip (Erik Stocklassa) and Sir Donald (Bror Berger) lark about in their confinement in high spirits even removed from freedom and their national drink: we’re clearly meant to like them… a sucker punch for what comes next, although there’s further play on our sympathy as the narrative unfolds.

The men escape after bamboozling a dopey guard and make their way across the frozen wastes. They very nearly succumb to sub-zero starvation but manage to find the home of a fishmonger, Torarin (Axel Nilsson) where they rip into their food and drink with animalistic relish as his wife looks on in horror.

Julius Jaenzon is the man with the movie camera

The picture shifts to the hall of Sir Arne (Hjalmar Selander) where dinner is in progress. Opposite Sir Arne sits the curate and at the far end of the table sit Sir Arne’s niece Berghild (Wanda Rothgardt) and Elsahill (Mary Johnson), an orphan taken in by the vicar’s household.

Torarin is present and sits without envy at the table of a man whose fortune is alleged to have been looted from the monasteries during the Swedish reformation. The monks had prophesised that the money would only bring ill-fortune and you know they might have been onto something.

Suddenly the meal is disturbed as Sir Arne’s Wife (Concordia Selander) has a vision of men sharpening long knives at Branehog… the table turns in shock at the ill forebodings.

Stiller works his way carefully around the narrative even when proceedings are telegraphed so clearly. 

Mary Johnson and Wanda Rothgardt

Sir Arne’s house is attacked and set aflame by “three men” and rather than show the incident the director focuses on the devastation of the aftermath after the villagers arrive – too late – to find Berghild mortally wounded on the floor and the entire household slaughtered. All except one… Elsahill emerges from hiding and we see her grief at finding her friends all dead – Johnson radiates pure sorrow and we’re none of us going to recover for the rest of the film.

The men escape across the frozen wastes and there’s a shocking moment when their horse trips into a gap in the ice (no disclaimer about animals being injured during silent filming…) taking their carriage with it. They make off with Sir Arne’s treasure box across the ice and cover their tracks in the hope their pursuers will believe all lost…

But this is no mere crime caper, there re deeper issues at stake and, as Elsahill is taken in by Torarin and his wife, she eventually catches the eye of three foreigners passing away the days as they wait for a ship back to Scotland. They are most anxious to hear her sad tale.

The winter is hard and the boats are all ice bound – the producers actually left a sailing ship to be frozen into the sea over winter – that’s planning! But will the weather clear when the men intend to ship their evil cargo? Meteorology moves in mysterious ways and there’s a cosmic balance in play.

Archie meets his match: Erik Stocklassa, Richard Lund  and Bror Berger

But, even within the confines of this Christian morality, nothing is clear cut as murderer-in-chief, Sir Archie and Elsahill fall in love. As one realises who the other actually is the two are tortured by conscience – how can she love the man who killed her loved ones and how can he forgive himself for the harm he has caused?

It doesn’t go the way you expect it to go… and raises compelling questions of love and forgiveness.

This is among the most emotional and immersive Swedish silents and is uncompromised by commercial consideration. The cast is strong and the style naturalistic even with Berghild’s ghost illustrating their guilt perhaps more than the supernatural – no doubt Stiller departs from his source in this respect.

Guilty visions

Mary Johnson’s tortures dominate the film and her intensity easily clears the bar marked melodramatic as she wrestles with the most conflicting of emotions. Richard Lund’s Sir Archie is not her match even though he meets her halfway in a bizarre love triangle of death, greed and guilt.

I watched the Kino DVD which comes with an emphatic new score from Matti Bye and Frederik Emilson which sweeps along at pace sometimes ahead of the film’s emotional force but always in sympathy. All in all, Sir Arne is a must have digital delight for fans of scandi-silents, you can order your copy here.

Mary Johnson