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YOUNG TALENT IS SOON DISCOVERED
The boys of Swedish Cinema find an easy road to stardom
by P.E. Burke
Originally published in Films and Filming, March 1957
Sweden has produced some forty films a year for the past few years and getting on for half of them are quality products. A number are of considerable merit, indeed the best films screened in Sweden during the past two years have been Swedish. This high level of production and excellent standard of work, which is remarkable for a country with a population of seven millions, ensures that no new acting talent goes undiscovered for long. If Sweden has a shortage it is of middle-aged players, as the depression of the early 1930's denied training to numbers of then potential actors and forced them to take whatever job came along. So Swedish films belong to the young.
Sweden's first film to be internationally received by the post-war world was Hets (Frenzy), a drama of youthful torment directed in 1944 by Alf Sjöberg from a script by Ingmar Bergman. It featured Alf Kjellin, who went to Hollywood, and after being unfortunately cast in Madame Bovary and My Six Convicts had the good sense to return to Sweden, where he re-established himself with several leading rôles–and had a chance to direct as well! For Sandrews, Sweden's largest film producers, he did the school drama Flickan i regnet (The Girl in the Rain), and Blockerat såar (Blocked tracks), a modern drama with a small town and railway setting. In Egen ingång (Private Entrance), which Hasse Ekman scripted and directed for Svensk Filmindustri, a film of the last six hours of a young woman's life, Kjellin was excellently cast in the rôle of the estranged husband.
Hasse Ekman appeared as a boy in 1936 in the original Swedish version of Intermezzo, which featured his father, the late Gösta Ekman, probably Sweden's greatest actor, and the young Ingrid Bergman. He is now the most successful artist working in Swedish films today, writing, directing and acting in his own films at the rate of two a year. His Gabrielle, made two years ago for Svensk Filminudstri, was a little masterpiece, but its de Maupassant-like story was above the heads of the average audience. That could not be said of Sjunde himlen (Seventh Heaven), a light travel comedy-romance on a bus trip to Rome.
Alf Sjöberg and Ingmar Bergman have collaborated for the controversial drama of modern Swedish youth, Sista paret ut (Last Couple Out), in which audiences noticed Jan-Olaf Strandberg (who is on the stage in the Swedish university city of Uppsala), and especially the young leading actor, Björn Bjelfvenstam. Born in 1929 and receiving his training at the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten) in Stockholm, Björn was brought into films by Ingmar Bergman in a small part in Kvinnors väntan (Women's Suspense) and in the strange rôle of the idealistic son of the worldly lawyer in Sommarnattens leende (Smiles of the Summer's Night).
International Success
Sweden's greatest-ever international success, Arne Mattsson's Hon dansade en sommar (One Summer of Happiness), made Folke Sundquist world famous. Folke, hwo was born in 1925 at Falun in the Swedish ore-mining district, was accepted by the Göteborg Theatre School when he was 17 and three years later he went to England to study English acting. On his return to Sweden director Mattsson saw him. The young Swede has now made six further films for Nordisk Tonefilm, including the tale of Icelandic life Salka Valka from the book by the Icelandic Nobel Prizewinner, Laxness; Så tuktas kärleken (The Taming of Love) a light drama with a school setting; and Litet bo (A Little Nest) a comedy about a newly-married couple. For some obscure reason these films have not been shown in Britain. He is now filming in Argentina in Livets vår (The Spring of Life) under the direction of Arne Mattsson.
Nils Hallberg, a 35-year-old Stockholm-born actor, has never played a leading rôle in a film. His homely face perhaps prevents this; but he is very well established. English audiences may remember him as the clarinet player in Hon dansade en sommar. Last year he had the best rôle of his career as the tough, rebellious son in Hemsöborna, the film version of Strindberg's novel of life in the Stockholm Archipelago of some sixty years ago.
A supporting player of talent who has recently won through is Sven-Eric Gamble. Born in Stockholm in 1924 he made his début on the stage of Dramaten at the age of seven in a tiny part in Gogol's The Inspector-General and appeared in his first film in 1934. He played a number of dubious character and petty gangster rôles in films, and he was quite good in Ingmar Bergman's Hamnstad (Seaport). His real chance came in the anti-militarist film Våld (Violence), directed by Lars-Eric Kjellgren, in which he gave a fine performance of a cheerful, optimistic soldier with no particular liking for the army, and won the 1955 award as the best Swedish supporting actor. He then took the leading rôle of a young professional boxer in Den hårda leken (The Hard Game).
Small Town Boy
Undoubtedly one of the most highly talented and most versatile young actors of the modern Swedish screen is 30-year-old Lars Ekborg, who comes from Västerås, a small town quite near Stockholm. He took routine jobs in order to go to Dramaten in Stockholm, after which came some stagework and then fame for his sincere performance in the leading male rôle of Sommaren med Monika (Summer with Monika), which Ingmar Bergman directed. His excellent playing of the most difficult leading part in Våld was widely acclaimed by the critics. In Egen ingång he carefully underplayed the rôle of a timid, bespectacled, young student with great success. He gave a noteworthy performance in Blockerad spår as a terrified hooligan who has accidentally killed a comrade through the incompetent handling of a stolen machine gun.
Birger Malmsten makes Möln over Hellesta (Cloud over Hellesta) the best Swedish thriller to date. Although rejected by the Royal Dramatic Theatre's training school,
Malmsten has become one of the leading Swedish light romantic actors after stage experience at the Hälsingborg Municipal Theatre and in Stockholm. He has been seen in Sommarlek, which was filmed a few summers ago in the Stockholm Archipelago, and gave a surprisingly good performance in Gabrielle.
Anita Björk partnered Jarl Kulle in the very successful Swedish production of Romeo and Juliet staged by the Royal
Dramatic Theatre three seasons ago. This fine acting partnership has been renewed in the new version of the thrice-filmed
Swedish film classic story Sången om den eldröda blomman (The Song of the Fire-red Flower), which Svensk Filmindustri
has completed in Eastmancolor and the Swedish wide-screen process, Agascope.
Kulle, who was born in Skåne, the southernmost
county of Sweden, had first to train himself to speak proper Swedish without the heavy, unpleasant Danish-like accent
which is typical of Skåne.
He played with distinction the difficult rôle of the Swedish King Erik XIV in Sandrews' film version of Strindberg's
historical drama. Very recently he deliberately took a seemingly unimportant supporting part of an unsympathetic "other
man" in Sista paret.
© 1957 Films and Filming
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