Peter Steen Movies

A man is torn between love, family, and a responsibility he does not want in this drama. Christoffer (Ulrich Thomsen) used to work for his family's steel company, but when the stress of the job began taking a serious toll on his health, he left the firm and now happily runs a restaurant in Stockholm and is married to Maria (Lisa Werlinder), a lovely and promising stage actress. At the urging of his father, Christoffer flies to Denmark for a family visit, only to discover upon arrival that his dad has just killed himself. Christoffer quickly discovers why: the steel business is on the verge of collapse and his mother (Ghita Nørby) urges him to take over rather than let his brother-in-law Ulrik (Lars Brygmann) assume control. Christoffer reluctantly agrees, but before long, his decision begins to drive a wedge between himself and Maria, while his difficulty in reviving the failing business forces him to deal honestly with his employees in a manner he's not accustomed to, as well as dealing with the uncomfortable points of corporate power. Arven (aka The Inheritance) is the second part of a trilogy by director Per Fly on the three primary social classes, following his 2000 debut Bænken. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A troubled mother-daughter relationship becomes even more corrosive when the widowed mother (Lone Hertz) rents out a room in their spacious suburban villa to a handsome writer (Lars Bom). The teenage daughter (Mette Maria Ahrenkiel) quickly attempts to seduce the new tenant, more to spite the mother than out of true desire. The girl's hitherto secure little world is falling apart: she wants to fit in with the fast, pot-smoking crowd and, at the same time, help a Bosnian refugee (Dejan Cukic) avoid the authorities. Fighting with her mother for the attention of a grown man almost seems an escape from the outside, too-adult world. In the end, it is the fate of the young Bosnian -- so much more consequential than a petty love triangle -- that forces mother and daughter to reevaluate their relationship. Directed by the then 83-year-old Danish veteran Astrid Henning-Jensen (Child of Man (1946), Vinterbørn (1978)), Bella Min Bella received more attention as the return to the screen of 1960s screen star Lone Hertz (Crazy Paradise (1965)) than for its slightly anachronistic generation-gap theme. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

In this engaging children's movie, a little boy named Topper (Kristjan Markersen) has a magic pencil that brings to life anything he draws on his apartment's walls. This helps him fend off the loneliness of an absent father, taken away for long periods by his work at sea. Everything seems to come to life when a bright yellow rhino drawn by Topper walks off the wall and eats vast quantities of dark bread and hay as a regular diet. Like most newborns, he loves those who feed him and pay him some kind attention but has no truck with the nasty innkeeper (Axel Stroebye) downstairs. Topper and the innkeeper's son Viggo (Erik Petersen) are the best of friends, enjoying life together as they go around town in an old children's stroller that they alternately push or ride. Although the innkeeper is after the magic pencil and makes life as miserable as he can for the young boys, he is inevitably thwarted in the end. Both charming and technically adroit, the fantasy and reality portrayed in the film would be entertaining for parents as well as children. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this talky political satire, Orpheus Jenkins (Christoffer Bro) is trying to get back into his native Denmark, but he is told that the entire country has been shut down. Its citizens are now living in exile and its land has become a nuclear weapons test site. So Orpheus goes to Rome, Paris, and Hamburg to look for his wife Eurydice (Anne Linnet), but even she has turned her back on him in favor of the feminist cause. Orpheus' destiny seems to be cast in cement by the Common Market. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The sledge-hammer approach is evident in this comedy in which popular Danish comedians Dirch Passer, Jørgen Ryg and Preben Kaas play has-been actors plotting a bank heist that includes tunnelling through Copenhagen's main railway station. Being actors, albeit out-of-work ones, the three don a series of more-or-less comical disguises in order to fool the local gendarmerie. Non Danes might have trouble warming up to gap-toothed Passer, the country's foremost comic of his day, and it is frankly hard to believe that this cinematic whale was created by the same director who won an Academy Award ten years later for Babette's Feast (1987). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Once the acknowledged king of the Polish cinema, director Alexander Ford was forced out of his native land by political pressure in 1969. His first non-Polish effort was the Danish/German The First Circle, ostensibly set in Russia but filmed in its entirety in Denmark. Based on a Solzhenitsyn novel, the film stars Gunther Malthasar as a Russian iconoclast. His outspokenness results in his being shipped to Siberia, there to die of starvation. As he awaits his doom, Malthasar takes heart in the fact that his tormentors have not been able to squelch his independent spirit. Alexander Ford chose to film The First Circle in English; so indecipherable were the various accents of the cast that the American distributor was compelled to redub the soundtrack. Despite its budget shortcomings and the fact that everyone is conversing in an unfamiliar language, The First Circle is one of Ford's best and most effective projects. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This Danish children's film tells the story of a family with 99 children: the mother is awaiting the birth of the 100th. They are also planning to move into a larger house. Well-behaved, they are able to clean up the house in minutes when a neighbor comes visiting. Similarly incredible gags, involving colorful members of the family, fill out this feature. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This was the second film in the long-lasting Danish caper-comedy series. The dapper little Egon Olsen (Ove Sprogøe) is, as always, released from prison but this time with the promise of going straight. Until, that is, a couple of American gangsters force the Olsen gang to come up with a plan. The three colleagues, Egon, Benny (Morten Grunwald), and Kjeld (Poul Bundgaard), along with Kjeld's ditzy wife Yvonne (Kirsten Walther), had not yet reached the top-tuned hilarity of later entries and are still encumbered by a series of supporting characters, who in retrospect seem only to get in the way of things. Supporting actor Preben Kaas, playing Benny's half-crazed brother, an expert in the illegal use of dynamite, earned a Danish "Academy Award" for his performance. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Barbara Yvonne Ingdal is a young actress who falls for a young man Peter Steen. Plagued by self doubt, her love affair seems to leave her without any vocational ambition or creativity. There are rare moments of humor in between Barbara's overwhelming feelings of desperation. This feature was the official Danish entry at the 1967 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi