Georg Rydeberg Movies

The Hour of the Wolf (original Swedish title: Vargtimmen) is Ingmar Bergman's spin on the demons that plague his fellow creative artists. Max von Sydow plays a painter who, while spending a summer in seclusion with his pregnant wife Liv Ullmann, is visited by bizarre and disturbing visions. Before long, Ullmann is also experiencing her husband's hallucinations; one of these, an old, faceless woman, advises Ullmann to read Von Sydow's diary. Doing so, Ullmann discovers that her husband has been cheating on her with Ingrid Thulin. In the subsequent domestic squabble, Von Sydow shoots and wounds his wife. The artist's punishment for this behavior is to have his lover, now dead, spring back to life and humiliate him in full view of Ullmann. Hour of the Wolf has something to say about the dangers of artists becoming too self-centered and self-involved; one hopes that most artists are not as thoroughly punished (or punishable) as Max Von Sydow. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This satirical comedy examines the loneliness of men and women from the Swedish perspective and their resolve to find Mr. or Miss Right or Mr. or Miss Right-Now. Couples try to find their soulmates in a series of vignettes and sight gags. Director Tage Danielsson co-wrote the script with Hans Alfredson. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Eldfagein started out as a modest musical short subject, spotlighting the talents of dancer Ellen Rasch. During production it was expanded by several reels, then promoted as Sweden's first full-color feature film. To flesh out the running time, opera stars Tito Gobbi and Leon Bjorker perform several masterful arias. And, yes, there's a plot, the old chestnut about fame and fortune impeding the romance between a singer and a dancer. Storywise, Eldfagein is a crazy quilt; musically, it is consistently fine. Outside of Sweden, the film was released as The Firebrand. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Tva Kvinnor (Two Women) was based on the prewar French film Prison de Femmes. The plot eschews the usual babes-behind-bars cliches to make an ironic comment on a bitter truth of life. To wit: A criminal is a criminal only if he (or she) is caught; otherwise, society is quick to forgive. One of the unfortunate unforgiven is ex-convict Eva Dahlbeck, who has trouble resigning herself to the fact that she must bear the stigma of "hardened criminal" while her partner-in-crime walks about scot-free. Director Arnold Sjostrand also appears on screen in a small but pivotal role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This rarely screened Swedish production, an adaptation of the play Attentat by W.O. Somin, was categorically disowned by its director, Carl Dreyer, who insisted that the casting made it impossible for him to do anything of value with the story. It depicts a single day in the life of the Swedish doctor Arne Lidell (Georg Rydeberg) and his wife Marianne (Wanda Rothgardt). Their relationship is threatened by a murder: the death of a man who was blackmailing Marianne over a past sexual affair, and demanding she inform him of the results of her husband's work. Her complicity ruins Dr. Lidell's work, and at the end of the film she dies, cradling him in her arms. 44/78 ~ Nicole Gagne, Rovi

French playwright Francis de Croiset's heavily plotted Il Etait Une Fois formed the basis of the Swedish A Woman's Face (En Kvinnas Ansikte). Ingrid Bergman plays a woman embittered by the horrible scar on her face, the result of a childhood mishap. Feeling unworthy of the "good" world, Bergman becomes a criminal. Given a new countenance by plastic surgeon Anders Hendrikson, Bergman decides to start life all over again, only to become enmeshed in a complicated crooked scheme, engineered by smarmy aristocrat Georg Rydenberg. A Woman's Face was purchased by MGM and remade in 1941, with Joan Crawford in the lead; most cineastes consider the Swedish version as the better of the two by far-and what a terrific ending! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi