Birger Asander Movies
In this drama set in a Scandinavian hospital in 1915, the individual stories of three pregnant women about to give birth are presented. The women come from a different social classes and have disparate views about the impending births. The middle-class woman married a servant of a wealthy family. She doesn't love her husband, nor does she care much about her child, whom she conceived out of spite. The baby is stillborn, and the woman sheds nary a tear. The second woman became wild and sexually irresponsible after she was seduced as a young woman by a much older man. Dividing her time between modeling and robbery, the woman ends up sleeping with the son of the family the middle-class woman's husband works for. The son is willing to support his bastard provided the wild woman marry his homosexual friend and pretend the child is his. She agrees. The third woman is introverted. As a youth, she had a short-lived lesbian affair in school. She then fell in love with an archaeologist who impregnated her. He refuses to acknowledge the child as his. This enrages the woman who joins a feminist movement and dedicates her life to removing the stigma of having babies out of wedlock. Of the three, she is the only one who really wants her child. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, (more)
- 1949
Military comedies were as popular in Scandinavia in the postwar era as they were in America -- perhaps even more so. Soldat Bom stars comedian Nils Poppe, who also penned the script. The film traces his various misadventures in uniform, his frequent tiltings with the "brass" and civilian authority figures, and his luck (or lack of it) with women. Inga Landre is very easy on the eyes as Poppe's leading lady. Soldat Bom did quite well financially in Sweden, but business tended to trail off in other countries. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nils Poppe, Inga Landgre, (more)
- 1948
Nearly a decade before his brilliant starring performance in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries, Swedish actor/director Victor Sjostrom topped the cast of Arne Mattson's Rallare. At this point in time, Mattson was alternating between thrillers and romances. Rallare falls into neither category: it is instead a pageantlike paean to the 19th-century builders of the Swedish railroad. Ballong (Sjostrom) and his pal Valfrid (John Ellfstrom) are two of the many stout-hearted, strong-limbed laborers who braved the elements to bring transportation to the length and breadth of Sweden. When not driving spikes or laying track, the two venerable stars while away their time with liquor and women -- and sometimes, with women and liquor. A box-office bonanza in Sweden, Rallare was liberally adapted by Rune Lindstrom from his own novel Nordanvind. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Elfström, Gunnel Broström, (more)
- 1945
Based on Laura Fitinghoff's novel Children on the Moor, this Swedish drama concentrates on a group of seven orphans. Slated to be shipped off to the poorhouse, the kids decide to take to the road to seek out new parents--and a proper owner for their pet goat. Gradually, each child is adopted into a loving home, but there are plenty of obstacles along the way, notably the treacherous Swedish climate. The best vignette concerns an elderly cobbler (John Ericcson) who, though rumored to be a human monster, displays his true nature when the children come into his life. Wisely, director Rolf Husberg plays away from gooey sentimentality, though neither he nor his actors are ashamed of good, honest sentiment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
