Stockholm Film Festival

The first Swedish colour film was made in Stockholm, where else. It was called Klockoma i Gamla Stan (''The Bells of the Old Town''), which is no coincidence. Swedish film, especially the most popular ones of the thirties and forties used this picturesque neighbourhood, with their beer drinking men, grumpy old women, pretty girls and hopeful young men, as their setting. When I look back into Swedish Filmography of the forties, I find a majority of them using the Old Town as the setti ng.
The choice for this particular setting was not a coincidence. Swedish film loved this idyllic spot. They preferred the country side, but if they were to film in Stockholm, this quaint little neighbourhood in the middle of Sweden's largest city, became the favourite background setting. The story is as idyllic as a Swedish film in the thirties possibly can be, despite the fact that it was made in the middle of the forties. The story plays upon the naivete of the heart. Edvard Persson, one of the most popular actors at the time, plays an understanding distrainor who tries to help a struggling, poor jazz pianist, played by Georg Fant. But the distrainor does not understand the young pianist, who wants to become a Swedish Gershwin. Meanwhile, the pianist also
finds support from his devoted fiance, played by Elsie Albiin. She's a flower girl. This isn't a coincidence either. The photographer splurges in colourful flower arrangements. Several complications arise - a doting upper-class woman tries to seduce the young musician, and a money lender threatens his business. If you guessed that Edvard Persson manages to solve all these complicated problems, you're absolutely right. Klockoma i Gamla Stan is by no means a master work. When the curtain rose at the premier of the film, the audience applauded spontaneously and for a long time only after being told by Edvard Persson of the difficulties of filming in colour and being shown a panoramic view of the Old Town. The interior filming, however, was strongly criticised. One critic wrote that ''the musicians at the fashionable restaurant hastily seemed to turn into a black orchestra'' and that Edvard Persson looked like a well to do Chinese Mandarin.
The audience, however, didn't seem to mind all this colour, and continued to flock the movie theatres. Nonetheless, this was of course also during the golden age of movies, at least in financial terms.

Medverkande

Edvard Persson, Georg Fant, Elsie Albiin

Producent

Europa film

Manus

Rangnar Hyltén-Cavallius

Foto

James B Schackelford

Musik

AlvarKraft

Talat språk

Swedish

 

Andra filmer från sektionen Staden 98

Se alla festivalfilmer från 1997