Sir Arne’s Treasure (no 75)

by Allan Fish

(Sweden 1919 106m) DVD1

Aka.  Herr Arnes Pengar

A winter ballad in five acts

p  Charles Magnusson  d  Mauritz Stiller  w  Mauritz Stiller, Gustav Molander  ph  Julius Jaenzon, Gustav Boge  ed  Mauritz Stiller  m  Matty Bye (new score) art  Harry Dahlström, Alexander Bako

Mary Johnson (Elsalill), Richard Lund (Sir Archie), Hjalmar Selander (Herr Arne), Concordia Selander (Herr Arne’s wife), Wanda Rothgardt (Berghild), Eric Slocklassa (Sir Filip), Bror Berger (Sir Donald), Gösta Gustafson (priest), Gustav Aronson (shipmaster), Stina Berg (landlady), Jenny Ohrström Ebbeson (Katri),

Set in 16^th Century Denmark (“the reign of King Johan III – a bitterly cold winter swept over Sweden”), Sir Arne’s Treasure follows the exploits of three Scottish mercenary knights who escape from captivity and murder a local parson and his family so as to steal his hoard of gold.  They don’t realise they left a survivor, in the form of daughter Elsalill, who hid behind a wall during the massacre, and she is sent to live with relatives in nearby Marstrand.  There she falls in love with Sir Archie, only to realise he was one of the cursed murderers of her family.

If Mauritz Stiller is remembered today, it is as the man who discovered Greta Gustaffson, renamed her Greta Garbo, and featured her in his epic romance Gösta Berlings Saga in 1924, when she was 19.  The rest – how he followed her to Hollywood, but fell foul of MGM, was sent home and died soon after – is, as they say, history. 

Read Full Post »