A Man There Was

Swedish version of Norwegian National Author Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's novel.

Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor's own first love.

An alcoholic, abusive ne'er-do-well is shown the error of his ways through a legend that dooms the last person to die on New Year's Eve before the clock strikes twelve to take the reins of Death's chariot and work tirelessly collecting fresh souls for the next year.

After a baron steals his scientific discoveries, runs away with his wife, and slaps him in public, a man joins a Parisian circus sideshow as a clown whose act consists of being slapped repeatedly and becomes infatuated with a showgirl colleague whose father intends to marry her off to the baron.

When Letty Mason relocates to West Texas, she finds herself unsettled by the ever-present wind and sand. Arriving at her new home at the ranch of her cousin, Beverly, she receives a surprisingly cold welcome from his wife, Cora. Soon tensions in the family and unwanted attention from a trio of suitors leave Letty increasingly disturbed.

In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne and kindly Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale fall in love. After Dimmesdale must go away for a time to England, he returns to discover that Hester has given birth to their child and is the focus of local censure.

Jan-Erik Widgren meets the lonely Bertha Olsson, a woman struggling with alcoholism. Though Bertha is already linked to Caligula, Jan-Erik's heartless teacher, she begins a relationship with the boy anyway. When Caligula learns that Jan-Erik is having an affair with Bertha, he begins to torture his student psychologically. He reserves his cruelest behavior for Bertha, however, which results in a tragic turn of events.

Swedish film of the Kaj Munk play that was made into a far more famous film by Carl Dreyer in Denmark twelve years later.

A young orchestra violinist’s fear of mediocrity and drive for artistic success strain his marriage to a fellow musician. Told largely in flashback and shaped by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the film examines ambition, love, and loss in early Ingmar Bergman.

An unemployed man encounters trouble when he tries to find a way to help his sick wife.

After the respectable Dr. Monro was found dead, the housekeeper and two engineers testify in court. A case of commercial delinquency and bribery is reconstructed on that occasion. Sadly only about half the film exists today.

Two smugglers meet two customs officers at sea, and happen to kill them. The story continues fifteen years later when a son of one of the officers and a smuggler's daughter fall in love with each other.

Documentary of the Swedish actor/director Victor Sjöström and his work - from Terje Vigen (1917) to Smultronstället (1957) Director Ingmar Bergman is interviewed about his memories of and experiences of Sjöström.

A gardener's son has fallen in love with the daughter of one of the workers at the nursery, and the two are married. The gardener then kicks his progeny off the property and begins to act despicably toward his son's wife.

A motherless child has a tumultuous existence, but she eventually becomes a famous international opera singer. Past and present meet when she performs in her original home town.

"The Black Masks", a secret political society, involves the beautiful agent Lydia to apprehend an important official document. Lieutenant von Muehlen is a trusted member of another secret society. He is on the same mission.