Summer Frolics and Shenanigans

A danish silent film from 1924

In Horsens, the exiled Russian princess Elisabeth Antonovna is imprisoned. Though her existence is a sad one, two things in particular can cheer the princess up: stories about the cunning smuggler Madsalune, and flirting with her humble suitor, Lieutenant Johan Gordon. One fine day, the two joys merge into one, when it transpires that the lieutenant is in fact the smuggler Madsalune in disguise! The princess’ fortune is decided, or at least it almost is because the two lovers first have to smuggle the princess through thick walls and past an army of jailers. (Stumfilm.dk)

Editor Halling is always looking for sensations in his newspaper. He believes in the principle that readers must have what they like,and he therefore notes with satisfaction that there has been a new large jewel theft, the fifth in the last 14 days. It is apparently an unusually cunning gang and the police are powerless. Between the numerous newspaper delivery is the little newspaper girl Suzanne, called Sus, and she manage a small newsstand in Adelgade.

Orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.

The Viennese child Leni Rossner accidentally gets separated from her tour group at the train station. Fortunately, luck smiles upon her when the kind-hearted young businessman Jørgen Wedel takes her to her destination: The Lassen family’s fashionable villa, Fredensro. As a friend of the family, he has been coming there for many years and, as expected, the family welcomes Leni with open arms and decides that she can stay there for the summer. It turns out that Leni’s presence brings peace and tranquility to the otherwise tense family dynamics, and she even finds time to play matchmaker for Jørgen Wedel and the Lassen’s 18-year-old daughter, Edith.

A tale of murder and marriage in 1625 Denmark.