82 minutes * Black & White * Monaural * In Swedish with English subtitles * 1.37:1 aspect ratio
Walpurgis Night (1935)
Lena (Ingrid Bergman) is in love with her married boss, Johan, in this romantic drama that takes Sweden’s declining birth rate as a backdrop and stirred up controversy with its depiction of abortion.
While Lena dreams of marriage and motherhood, Johan’s wife is fiercely unmaternal. Johan and Lena have a chance to be together, but their happiness is threatened by blackmail and murder. The great Victor Sjöström plays Lena’s fiercely protective father, a newspaper editor convinced that the population problem will be solved by love, not legislation.
79 minutes * Black & White * Monaural * In Swedish with English subtitles * 1.37:1 aspect ratio
Intermezzo (1936)
Gustaf Molander’s well directed romantic melodrama depicts a doomed love affair between a married violin virtuoso and a young pianist (Ingrid Bergman in a role created especially for her).
The film contains a co-starring turn by the Swedish actor Gösta Ekman.
It was a defining part for Bergman, which made her a star in Sweden and caught the eye of American producer David O. Selznick, who offered the young actress a Hollywood contract and the chance to remake Intermezzo in English, opposite Leslie Howard.
Running time: 92 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
In Swedish with English subtitles
1.37:1 aspect ratio
Dollar (1938)
Gustaf Molander’s Swedish take on screwball comedy deals with some dark themes.
Three couples retire to a ski lodge, where they quarrel and flirt. The arrival of an American investor forces revelations.
Ingrid Bergman plays the frustrated spouse of a busy industrialist with conservative views about how his wife should behave in public.
Bergman’s character, who initially appeared to be catty and faithless, is revealed as sweet, sympathetic, and heartbroken.
Running time: 78 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
In Swedish with English subtitles
1.37:1 aspect ratio
A Woman’s Face (1938)
In this dramatic thriller, Ingrid Bergman takes on an uncharacteristically vicious role as Anna, a bitter, nefarious blackmailer with a disfigured face. Gustaf Molander directs, meticulously hiding and revealing Bergman’s features as necessary. After Anna is given an operation to restore her looks, she embarks on a scheme that requires her to go undercover as a nanny to a rich family, but as her personality softens and she discovers maternal instincts she never knew she had, her latest plot is put in jeopardy. Joan Crawford would star in the Hollywood remake.
100 minutes * Black & White * Monaural * In Swedish with English subtitles * 1.37:1 aspect ratio
June Night (1940)
This noirish romance stars Ingrid Bergman as a shy young woman who is shot by her lover. Following his trial, she begins a new life in Stockholm under an assumed identity, working at a pharmacy and making new friends at the rooming house where she takes up residence. Both a grim exposé of sexual politics and a sensual romance, June Night features a remarkably intense performance from Bergman as a woman weighed down by a secret, symbolized by a scar near her heart, who learns to fall in love again.
Running time: 89 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
In Swedish with English subtitles
1.37:1 aspect ratio
