John Redmond, the Evangelist (1915) User Reviews

At least three versions exist.

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 5/10 · 17 October 2006]

I saw 'Evangeliemandens liv' at the 2006 Cinema Muto festival in Sacile, Italy, where it was screened with three different endings. Speaking of which: several Internet bloggers (mostly in the U.S.A.) have questioned the accuracy of some of my IMDb reviews, claiming discrepancies between my plot synopses and the content of the movies. What those bloggers don't realise (or what they DO realise but they don't want to acknowledge) is that a movie sometimes exists in several different versions. This is particularly the case for silent movies released in several different languages: sometimes the person who translated the intertitles would also change the names of major characters, and change the content of the text in the titles and dialogue. When Hollywood silents were distributed in Europe, it was not unusual for the footage to be re-edited, with new titles inserted, altering the film's plot to suit the tastes of a different culture. This practice continued into the talkies era: for example, British prints of the Marx Brothers movie 'Horse Feathers' contain a scene between Thelma Todd and Harpo which doesn't exist in any Stateside print I've seen. My detractors are looking at U.S. prints of these silents, while I'm usually screening European or British prints, which can be significantly different.

'Evangeliemandens liv' ("Evangelist's Life") begins very promisingly and imaginatively. We see popular Danish leading man Valdemar Psilander (as himself) sitting in a darkened set, reading a copy of this film's screenplay. Against a hazy background appear three images of John Redmond (Psilander's role in this film) in the three roles that he will fulfil in this story: playboy, convict, evangelist. It's a striking image, and a powerful opening scene. Too bad the film is downhill from here.

Handsome young Billy Sanders (Birger von Cotta-Schønberg) is drifting into a life of crime, leading to quarrels with his girlfriend Nelly Gray (Alma Hinding, a pretty brunette). Wise older man Redmond, now a lay preacher, proceeds to caution Billy by relating his own life story. Unfortunately, most of this movie's running time is taken up with Redmond's unwieldy flashback.

Redmond (looking no younger in the flashback) was once a wealthy playboy, in love with the town slut (Else Froehlich, quite sexy) but jealous of her many other lovers. During an argument with one of these men, Redmond pulled a revolver and accidentally killed the woman they were fighting over. For this, Redmond served a long prison sentence; while in Danish porridge, he found religion with the help of the prison chaplain (Frederik Jacobsen, a dull performance).

SPOILERS NOW. 'Evangeliemandens liv' was a Danish film intended primarily for domestic audiences, so the ending released in Denmark would be the 'official' ending. In that version, Billy sees the error of his ways, and he and Nelly are tearfully reunited while Redmond beams approval. However, this movie was released to foreign markets with two other endings. In the Russian version, Nelly decides to commit suicide. She fashions a noose; in close-up, we see the arousal in her eyes as she embraces the noose lovingly. Then she hangs herself. The End. In the Swedish version, Nelly again fashions the noose; again, she seems to arouse herself as she embraces it. She climbs onto a chair, kicks it away ... just as Billy and Redmond burst into her room. Redmond unpockets a penknife, cuts the rope, tosses his knife aside while Billy helps Nelly onto the bed. Redmond raises his eyes heavenward, giving thanks that Nelly will live.

I find these alternate endings interesting for what they reveal about the expectations of different film audiences. Apparently, Russian movie audiences in 1915 didn't want happy endings. Also apparently, Swedish audiences DID want happy endings ... but only providing that the girl suffer first, and nearly kill herself. Also, I'm intrigued (but not surprised) that all three versions of this movie take a misogynist view: when a young couple quarrel over the boy's criminal propensities, it's clearly the duty of the girl -- not the boy -- to end the relationship by committing suicide. Oh, blimey! 'Evangeliemandens liv' is extremely well-photographed, and the prison sequences are quite realistic. Most of the actors give performances more subtle than I would have expected. But the pace of this film is leaden and stodgy, and the flashback structure is extremely unwieldy. My rating for this movie: 5 out of 10, no matter which ending you see.

Politically Correct

[FerdinandVonGalitzien · 5/10 · 23 March 2007]

John Redmond is a "long-haired" youngster who belongs to a wealthy family. But due to the fact that he likes very much to live an extravagant life amidst bad company (the 20's also had those kind of people…), he spoils his life. A victim of a dirty trick by one of his supposed friends, he goes to prison for a crime he never committed. It will be there, thanks to the prison's clergyman, that Herr Redmond finally is able to get back his well-mannered life. Thanks to newfound faith, he becomes a clergyman too - preaching the gospel and using his life as a bad example. In this way, he helps the poor people who live a more miserable life accustomed as they are to the slums rather than his elegant districts.

"Evangeliemandens Liv" is a "Nordisk" film production filmed by the efficient and versatile Danish director, Holger-Madsen. It is a terrible fact that he is an unknown film director even amongst silent film fans. That's because Herrr Holger-Madsen was a film technique pioneer, thus endowing his films with a peculiar and innovative style for the time. In making his production he had in his service one of Denmark's greatest film stars - Valdemar Psilander - fair and perfect in his role as a dilettante on his way to becoming a self-sacrificing clergyman.

The film is an elegant and efficient film production although it lacks emotion in the development of the story; it's an excessively correct film, or "politically correct" as today's long-haired say nowadays. For that reason, the spectator especially celebrates the chance to see two of the alternative ending scenes of the film distributed for the Russian and Swedish film markets.

The Danish version ends with Herr Redmond and a youngster who has been reconverted to a decent life thanks to the faith of the clergyman, rushing into the squalor room of the youngster's wife in the nick of time to prevent her suicide as she tries to hang herself, tired of living a sad existence without any hope.

The Russian version ends with the girl achieving her aim - that is, hanging herself in the room… well, it's a notorious fact, with little exaggeration, how inhuman the communists can be …

Cold as death are the Swedish but less brutal than the Russians. So in their version the girl is saved "in extremis" thanks to the clergyman and her husband. They get her down with the rope still around her neck from the ceiling, but fortunately and thanks to their first aid, the girl recovers easily and is able to resume her miserable existence…

These three different endings endow the final part of the film with varying emotional and dramatic quality for a story too predictable in its intent to serve as a cautionary story.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count is waiting for his personal confessor, hoping both of us will redeem our sins thanks to Porto's wine.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

The production is filled with the sadness which is attendant on ill-doing

[deickemeyer · 21 November 2019]

It is very evident that in the making of this production the moral of the story was uppermost in the producer's mind, although there is present no inclination toward the sentimental, and the chief character of the play, John Redmond, has accompanying his grey hair and clerical garb a good sound muscle such as attends a healthy body, and he strikes a blow or two in defense of a would-be convert that hints at a frequent use of the privileges of the gymnasium. The story of the picture, a story within a story, tells of the wrecking of one young man's career through his obstinacy in refusing to listen to the advice of his elders, and the frequenting of questionable places and mixing familiarly with their people. The result of it all is that an attachment is formed with one of the women of the place who is afterward shot accidentally by John Redmond's friend, who rushes out and leaves Redmond to shoulder the blame of the murder. Redmond, of course, lands in prison, but is later released through the efforts of the prison chaplain, who, believing his story, sets out to find the real offender. During the term of his imprisonment the father of John Redmond dies, and upon his being released his mother dies also. The production is filled with the sadness which is attendant on ill-doing, and is therefore of moral use to the spectator. It will also be noticed that every man or woman in the cast or among the supers has either talent or the good sense to follow the lead of the director, for every scene is intensely realistic. - The Moving Picture World, April 10, 1915

Reforming the Sensational

[Cineanalyst · 4/10 · 7 May 2005]

The opening sequence of Valdemar Psilander "preparing" for his role is pretentious and ridiculous, introducing the overly theatrical performance he gives as an evangelist preacher. From the three films I've seen with him, Psilander seemed an okay actor given film acting at the time, but, here, he falls folly to the common way of pretending to be religious and moral in a picture that's supposedly the same--that is, by being stiff and rigid in pseudo-reverence. Apparently, many filmmakers thought muscle tension and lacking vivacity were next to godliness.

Furthermore, the pacing is rather slow and meandering (but at least it's only an hour long). The exception to all of this is the beginning of the flashback sequence. The lurid episodes of sex and crime leading to the protagonist's imprisonment and reformation are congruous with the thread of sensational film in Danish silent cinema. The rest of it (except for the climax), with its lackluster reverence, is quite opposed to what one expects from the era.

There are also some interesting film techniques here. A dolly-in and dissolve simultaneously for the transitions around the flashback to the sensational. There's low-key lighting, including a silhouette of a woman undressing. The filmmakers actually stopped filming to add lighting before resuming scenes when the preacher turned on a lamp, seemingly lighting the set by itself. The window that features prominently in these scenes at the preacher's room adds to the overall effectiveness of the mise-en-scène.

(By the way, the timing and execution of that gunshot scene sure was wretched.)