WALPURGIS NIGHT (1935)

In the office of the Morning Post, the managing editor, Gustav, and the news editor, Fredrik, are arguing about how the paper should take on the issue of Sweden's plunging birth rate. Gustav says the problems are rich bachelors and a housing shortage; Fredrik thinks it's a general lack of love. Fredrik's daughter Lena (Ingrid Bergman) is suffering in silence over her love for her married boss Johan (Lars Hansen), while Johan is suffering over the state of his marriage. He thinks having a child would help keep him and his wife Clary together, but she still feels too young and carefree to be burdened with children. Walpurgis Night rolls around, a time of spring celebrations. Lena, who has said nothing to Johan about her feelings, decides to quit her job, and when Clary tells Johan she doesn't want to spend the evening on the town with him, he asks Lena to join him and the two fall in love. Meanwhile, Clary discovers she is pregnant and goes to her doctor for an abortion, but instead he lectures her on the dignity that motherhood would bring to her, so she has it done illegally. This leads to a melodramatic turn of events: the abortionist is arrested, but the only record that Clary has of the abortion goes missing, and the small-time crook who stole it tries to blackmail Clary. As the story makes headlines in the Morning Post, Fredrik comes to believe that it was his daughter who had the abortion, and when the blackmailer is shot dead, Johan is the chief suspect. Can happiness possibly be in the cards for Lena and Johan?

This Swedish love triangle melodrama is notable for two things: the presence of the young Ingrid Bergman and the anti-abortion slant. Despite the overall serious tone of the narrative, the newspaper scenes, especially the discussions of birth rate, play out humorously. However, the first doctor's proclamation of the dignity of childbirth is clearly meant to be taken as the philosophy of the filmmakers. Though the proceedings are rather soapy (as in soap opera), the acting is solid. Bergman is actually the weakest of the leads, largely because her role is underwritten. Lars Hanson, who had a solid career in Hollywood silent movies but returned to Sweden with the advent of talkies, is quite good as Johan, and Victor Sjostrom is equally good as the father. Sjostrom is better known as the director of the silent classic THE WIND and as the lead in Ingmar Bergman's WILD STRAWBERRIES. Sture Lagerwell is also good in the small but important role of a newspaper tipster. Pictured are Bergman and Hansen. [TCM; Criterion Channel]