Erotikon (1920)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Mauritz Stiller

Writers:

Ferenc Herczeg (play)
Gustaf Molander (writer)

Release Date:

8 November 1920 (Sweden)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Plot Keywords:

Extramarital Affair | Maid | Chauffeur | Deception | Melodrama

Cast

Anders de Wahl	...	Professor Leo Carpentier
Tora Teje	...	Irene Carpentier
Karin Molander	...	Marthe
Elin Lagergren	...	Irene's Mother
Lars Hanson	...	Preben Wells
Vilhelm Bryde	...	Baron Felix
Bell Hedqvist	...	The Baron's Friend
Torsten Hammarén	...	Sidonius
Vilhelm Berndtson	...	Jean
Stina Berg	...	Servant
John Lindlöf	...	Preben's Friend
Greta Lindgren	...	Preben's Model
Carl Wallin	...	Fur Salesman
Gucken Cederborg	...	Kitchen Maid
Tora Wibergh	...	Jenny

Also Known As:

Bounds That Chafe
Just Like a Man
Riddaren av i gar
Seduction
When We Are Married

Runtime:

97 min (16 fps) | 106 min (original release)

Country:

Sweden

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Spain:13 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden

Company:

Svensk Filmindustri (SF)

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Blodigt jävla helvete (2008)

The Professor, the Wife, the Niece, the Sculptor, the Baron - and the Shah

Huge, dead tree beetles, a long-haired Arabian beauty dancing an erotic, half-naked dance of the veils wearing an exotic peacock-feathered headdress, and a niece who secretly likes to kick up her legs and smoke, makes mutton and cabbage casserole, and flirts with her own uncle - just a few of the things featured in this somewhat weird, but interesting, and even, at times, mildly amusing silent film. The film is about Leo, a professor of entomology and his tired-looking, bored "touched with melancholy" wife Irene, who has a crush on her husband's best friend, a handsome sculptor named Preben (Lars Hanson). Preben is in love with Irene as well, but holds back because of his friendship with her husband. Meanwhile, Leo flirts with, of all things, his own niece (and she must be a blood relative as she has the same last name as him!). Jealousies ensue.

I thought the film was pretty well done and enjoyable, though a bit slow in parts. The music score that accompanies this film didn't really suit the story very well and was pretty heavy and gloomy for most of the film - in fact, it was really getting on my nerves (not in a good way) for the last half hour or so. The music did suit the story in a few places though - namely, a scene where they attend the opera to see this fantasy ballet featuring the on-stage tale of a Shah and his beautiful "favorite wife", and my favorite scene in the film - an interesting bit of photography in which Irene takes a flight with another of her flirtations, Baron Felix, and we watch their little plane as it sours through the air, Irene's scarf flying in the open air cockpit, and camera strapped to the wings as it looks through the moving clouds to the landscape below. Well done. The print of this looked very good, tinted in most scenes a sort of bright yellow-brown shade.