A quick overview of Swedish film history, featuring a breathtaking cavalry of scenes from about 170 films.
Gösta Berling is a young and attractive minister. Because of his alcoholism and his daring sermons, he is finally defrocked. He becomes a tutor of countess Marta's stepdaughter and they fall in love. But the countess has a plan of her own.
The favorite slave girl of a tyrannical sheik falls in love with a cloth merchant. Meanwhile, a hunchback clown suffers unrequited love for a traveling dancer who wants to join the harem.
When his ancestors seem to appear in the clouds during a storm of biblical proportions, young Ingmar decides to give up his career as the village teacher and to reclaim the land and farm of his fathers. The same stormy night, the charismatic preacher Helgum arrives in the village to spread the word about the promises of the Holy Land, which turns parents and children, men and wives, brothers and sisters, against one another. Ingmar is torn between his love for the headmaster’s daughter Gertrud who is under the preacher’s spell, and the prospects of marrying the judge’s daughter Barbro in order to keep the farm.
The story of Brennende Grenze (= Burning Border) starts after the end of WWI. Polish franctireurs invade the German bordering regions which are to be given to Poland as agreed on in the post-war peace treaties. Luise von Willkühnen's manor is invaded by Ladislaus von Zeremski, his lover Nadja and their gang. They treaten the inhabitants until Luise's son kills Zeremski.
The perfect body as an object of cult worship. Based on the mass sports and body worship movement of the 1920s, the film propagates physical training and shows in stylized documentary scenes aspects of physical hygiene, gymnastics, sports and dancing as well as scenes in which supposed sportsmen of antiquity pose naked.
Compilation film with scenes from different Swedish silent films, many of the films have since been lost and the only surviving fragments can be found in this film.
When Ellen Brenton takes a swim too far from the shore she is be saved by the lifeguard Bob. While her husband is away on business Bob gets drunk and try to romance Ellen in her hotel room. There's a scandal in the media.
A naval adventure that focuses on the rivalry among the crew, particularly the indignation wrought by the behavior of inplacable Captain Steen. Dick, one of the sailors, is one of the most rebellious and draws up plans to exact vengeance. The opportunity arises, but an incident that may sink the ship changes the focus of attention. The lighting for the film and the composition of the scenes are regarded as the highlights of the movie.
Silent film starring Jenny Hasselqvist
Eva Bennet, a young mysterious widow appears at Pension Sanssouci in Berlin during the Weimar era. She attracts a lot of attention from everybody, especially from Georg Raval.
On a farm in up-country Sweden, an enigmatic stranger comes to a conservative peasant community and seduces a farmer's wife.
Lovers are torn apart by a noble's desire for the female half of the couple.
"Guilty" - Thomas Feld returns home after 16 years in prison to find his wife Magda and daughter Maria fell in the hands of Peter Cornelius, the owner of a cabaret. Lawyer Frank Peters falls in love with Maria.
At the end of the middle ages, Ursula is accused of having poisoned her own husband. She claims she is innocent, but to prove it, she must submit to a ritual: trial by fire, walking on fire along a path leading directly to a crucifix. A film that has been much commended for the visual creativity shown by the director in successive blending in of images involving Ursula, her husband, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ. Much applauded, also: the performance of Jenny Hasselqvist, thus described by French director René Clair: “We shall never forget her flaming eyes, the severity of her spirit, her abrupt and alarmed expressions, like an animal under threat.”
A wealthy Russian family faces change and challenges as events unfold during the First World War.
Gösta is a trainee for the brutal Algren. He runs away and get to know a friendly drifter.
When Ingmar Ingmarsson marries Barbro Svensdotter there's a big party with many guests. But the bride and groom are unhappy.
A husband, jealous of his wife's flirtations with another man, hatches a plot to make his wife jealous.
This is the story of Olof Svensson who works as a streetcar conductor in Stockholm. In his free time he is a music composer.