Ingmar Bergman was still settling his score with his parents' generation with this script, which saw production five years after it was written. Both the hero and his girlfriend have blighted marriages, his because his platinum blonde mother (Eva Dahlbeck) only ever married his father for his money and (as she describes explicitly and at great length) wants out because she will no longer deny herself the physical needs satisfied by her toyboy lover; while his girlfriend's mother ironically still yearns for her husband - the catch this time being that she's a widow.
Elegantly directed by Alf Sjöberg and handsomely photographed by Martin Bodin, everyone seems prosperous but miserable. Bergman's previous collaboration with Sjöberg, 'Hets' (1944) casts a visible shadow over the opening and closing scenes populated by very mature looking pupils (Björn Bjelfvenstam's mother actually observes that he looks nearly as old as Jarl Kulle as her lover). Hugo Björne as Professor Jacobi strongly recalls Olof Winnerstrand as the wise old Principal in 'Hets', even down to the final scene in which he offers advice in a room filled with rolled posters as in the earlier film.
In addition to Dahlbeck, two of Bergman's most celebrated female leads are
featured, Harriet and Bibi Andersson. Unusually on this occasion the latter is a brunette while the former is a dramatic looking peroxide blonde.
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