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Thomas Graals bästa film

  • 1917
  • 52m
IMDb RATING
6.0/10
235
YOUR RATING
Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
Comedy

Thomas Graal's a screenwriter, is very fond of his secretary Bessie. Overtaken by a kiss by Thomas she runs away. In his misfortune Thomas writes a screenplay inspired by Bessie. But she has... Read allThomas Graal's a screenwriter, is very fond of his secretary Bessie. Overtaken by a kiss by Thomas she runs away. In his misfortune Thomas writes a screenplay inspired by Bessie. But she has not been really honest with him .Thomas Graal's a screenwriter, is very fond of his secretary Bessie. Overtaken by a kiss by Thomas she runs away. In his misfortune Thomas writes a screenplay inspired by Bessie. But she has not been really honest with him .

  • Director
    • Mauritz Stiller
  • Writer
    • Gustaf Molander
  • Stars
    • Victor Sjöström
    • Karin Molander
    • Albin Lavén
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    6.0/10
    235
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Mauritz Stiller
    • Writer
      • Gustaf Molander
    • Stars
      • Victor Sjöström
      • Karin Molander
      • Albin Lavén
    • 4User reviews
    • 1Critic review
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Photos27

    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)
    Karin Molander in Thomas Graals bästa film (1917)

    Top cast

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    Victor Sjöström
    Victor Sjöström
    • Thomas Graal
    Karin Molander
    Karin Molander
    • Bessie Douglas
    Albin Lavén
    Albin Lavén
    • Alexander Douglas
    Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson
    Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson
    • Clotilde Douglas
    Axel Nilsson
    • Johan
    Adolf Blomstedt
    • Beyron
    Gustaf Boge
    • Photographer
    Gucken Cederborg
    Gucken Cederborg
    • Cook
    Emma Dietrichs
    • Shop Clerk
    Emil Fjellström
    Emil Fjellström
    • Towboat Captain
    Henrik Jaenzon
    • Photographer
    William Larsson
    • Marsey
    Thyra Leijman-Uppström
    • Concierge
    Nils Lundell
    Nils Lundell
    • Russian Extra
    Torsten Winge
    Torsten Winge
    Olof Ås
    • Stage worker
    • Director
      • Mauritz Stiller
    • Writer
      • Gustaf Molander
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

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    • Connections
      Featured in Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (1995)

    User reviews4

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    9/10
    A masterpiece of comic cinema that shows how the medium can transform and distort, as well as record, reality.
    Swedish cinema in the period 1917-21 was arguably the most sophisticated in the world, its major figure being the actor-director Victor Sjostrom, whose magnificently downbeat films combined literary adaptation, action, melodrama and astonishing natural backdrops. There are some of us, however, who prefer comedy to action melodramas, Lubitsch to Ford, and for this we turn to Sjostrom's contemporary, Mauritz Stiller, unfairly relegated in history to 'The Man Who Discovered Greta Garbo'.

    'Thomas Graal's Best Film' is one of the best comedies of the silent era. It works as an adorable romantic comedy about a concupiscent novelist who falls for his secretary; as a startling social tract, with the dessicated aristocracy giving onto the modern world of cinema, entrepreneurs and the New Woman; as one of the first films about filmmaking - there is an exquisite parody of Griffith's monumental 'Intolerance', as the actor playing a hanged criminal complains about the pain of being hoist from a ceiling.

    As early as 1917, before Hollywood was even heard of, we meet the philistine mogul hurling scripts into a wastepaper basket; the hysterical director; the overwrought, melodramatic actors. There is a wonderful scene where Bessie on horseback sees a man attacking a woman on a country road; coming cracking her whip to the rescue, she notices that a film crew are standing beside the roadside; she has mistaken fantasy for reality. This is the film's main theme, and the longest sequence features the title hero writing a screenplay after his mauling Bessie has forced her to flee; he imagines a desperate background of poverty for her from which he rescues her - this is the Best Film of the title.

    Stiller's movie shows a thrilling modernity in this sequence as it blurs not only the reality of Graal's writing and the fantasy he imagines, but also intrudes Bessie's own story: she disrupts his narrative just as she disrupts all the forces of (male) power that would try to pin her down. Bessie is one of the great heroines of silent film, permanantly amused by the absurd complacency of the inferiors surrounding her, with a gorgeous, generous grin suggesting both a taste for playfulness, and a voracious sexual appetite. The scene where she flees her father and ritualistically forces him to abandon his paternalistic intentions by destroying the bridge between them is hilarious but provocative.

    Graal's screenplay is not merely amusing for the gap between his assumptions and the actual truth. The imagined scene where the aristocratic parents become peasants, the father violent and drunk is subversive in itself (gentry reduced to peasants), but is also an apt metaphor for the patriarchal assumptions of the aristocracy.

    Another aspect of the film's modernity is its narration, expressed through intertitles, sarcastic at the expense of the characters, suggesting melodramatic attitudes appropriate to the plot, than showing a very different reality (eg the despairing lover Graal sunbathing merrily on a country lake). There is a ritualistic sexual content (eg the scene in the boat where Graal blows on the window), and a willingness to sidetrack on 'irrelevant' bits (eg the cigarette tricks) that also excite the viewer; while the Surreal/Magritte/Feuillade-like abduction scene, fragmented and seemingly arbitrary, where bowler-hatted servants wait to pounce on Bessie, is spooky.

    What makes 'Thomas Graal' a true classic though, and nearer to Sjostrom (who is terrific, his overacting more suited to comedy than drama), is the way the defiant artifice of the drama is shot against natural locations, producing a fruitful, jarring effect - Graal chasing Bessie through a country lane, slipping and losing his hat; a desperate Graal pushing a little old lady and stealing her boat, foreshadowing Seinfeld and a famous loaf of rye. There is a startling scene in a butcher's shop, a gallery of fresh carcass bloating the screen.
    helpful•5
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    • the red duchess
    • May 28, 2001

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • August 13, 1917 (Sweden)
    • Country of origin
      • Sweden
    • Language
      • None
    • Also known as
      • Wanted - A Film Actress
    • Filming locations
      • Restaurang Blå Portens trädgård, Djurgården, Stockholm, Sweden(at restaurant)
    • Production company
      • Svenska Biografteatern AB
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • Runtime
      52 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Silent
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.33 : 1

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