JUNE NIGHT (1940)

In a small Swedish town, young beautiful Kerstin (Ingrid Bergman) tries to leave her sailor lover Nils (Gunnar Sjoberg) but he takes her leaving badly and shoots her to stop her. She is badly wounded, with the bullet grazing her heart, but recovers and he is brought to trial for attempted murder. Kerstin actually pleads for leniency for Nils—he claims he actually wanted to kill himself—but she faints in court due to her still impaired state which leads to the press (specifically a reporter named Willy) calling her a "wounded swan" which seems to generate less sympathy for her. She is seen as morally loose and Nils is seen as the injured party, if not physically than emotionally. He gets a six month jail sentence and to avoid the headlines, Kerstin moves to Stockholm, adopts the name Sara, gets a job at a pharmacy, and moves into a boarding house where she rooms with Asa (Marianne Lofgren), a nurse who knows her real identity, and two other girls who sort of recognize her but can't place her. Unfortunately, one of the girls is dating Willy, the reporter, who goes to work on a new story. Asa's boyfriend Stefan gets interested in Sara. Later, when Nils is released from jail, he tracks her down and tries to talk to her, leading to another melodramatic incident. Asa and the roommates, despite Sara and Stefan's obvious attraction, close ranks to protect Sara/Kerstin from Nils and from the press.

This noirish Swedish melodrama (Swedish title, JUNINATTEN) has an interesting plot, and one that seems a bit ahead of its time as it presents the strength of feminist sisterhood. Though it feels character driven, ultimately the characters are not as strongly drawn as they should be. Even (maybe especially) Kerstin remains something of a blank. We never really know much about her background. Her possible promiscuity should not be held against her, especially when Nils' trial winds up seeming like it's judging her more than him, but it would be helpful to know more about her past. Asa is almost a more interesting character than Kerstin, though we know little about her, and her actions at the end make her something of a feminist saint. Considering Stefan's importance near the end, he is barely sketched out as a character. That kind of leaves Nils as the person we know the best, though finally his presence in the last half is more a device than anything else—once he plays his part in the climactic actions, he vanishes. The acting, despite the shallow characterizations, is good all around. Of course, Bergman shines as she always did; this was her last Swedish film before her move to Hollywood and international stardom, and she comes off as innocently sexy, not so differently than she did a few years later in Casablanca. Lofgren is very good as well, and Sjoberg does what he can in an underwritten role. Olof Widgren (pictured with Bergman) is handsome as Stefan but has little to do. Cinematographer Ake Dahlqvist, who shot a couple of Bergman's other Swedish movies, contributes a nice dark-streets noir look. Best line, as Willy tries to defend his sensationalistic reportage: "Other people's misery goes great with the morning coffee." [TCM]