Sixty years ago, the Swedish film industry was a rather sleepy place with a low global profile. Then a young cherub-cheeked actress, playing a maid in a wacky hotel, walked onscreen in a little comedy called The Count of the Old Town, and a star was born. Her name was Ingrid Bergman, and the rest, of course, is film history.
Cinephiles will remember Bergman as one of Hollywood's most versatile leading ladies, earning three Oscars (Gaslight, Anastasia, Murder on the Orient Express) and immortality as the female lead in Casablanca. Yet even the most ardent film buffs may be unaware of her roots in Swedish cinema. In celebration of 60 years of Ingrid Bergman onscreen, World Artists Home Video is releasing Ingrid Bergman in Sweden, an eight-video collectors series featuring the star's earliest work during 1935 to 1940.
Transferred from archive-quality prints with enhanced subtitles, this octet is a delight. Of particular interest is Bergman's 1937 drama Intermezzo, which brought her to Hollywood to reprise the role of a love-swept pianist in David O. Selznick's remake. (Film scholars generally peg the original Swedish version as superior to Tinseltown's redo, both in overall production quality and in Bergman's performance.)
Also noteworthy is the original film version of A Woman's Face, with Bergman as the bitter disfigured female who finds love and a new life with the help of a dedicated plastic surgeon.
Lesser known, but well worth viewing, are titles like Dollar, with Bergman tangled in a trio of couples who all suspect their spouses of having affairs with each other, and Only One Night, a frenetic film about illegitimacy and adultery that shocked bluenose American censors when it was first shown in the US.
Even if you have never heard of Ingrid Bergman, it is easy to spot her star quality in these once-obscure productions.
Ingrid Bergman in Sweden: US$119.98 for the set, $19.98 for individual videos. World Artists Home Video: (800) 821 1205, +1 (213) 933 7057, fax +1 (213) 933 2356.
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