The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöström, 1921)

Victor Sjöström and Tore Svennberg in The Phantom Carriage

David Holm: Victor Sjöström
Anna Holm: Hilda Borgström
Georges: Tore Svennberg
Edit: Astrid Holm
Edit's Mother: Concordia Selander
Maria: Lisa Lundholm
Gustafsson: Tor Weijden
David's Brother: Einar Axelsson

Director: Victor Sjöström
Screenplay: Victor Sjöström
Based on a novel by Selma Lagerlöf
Cinematography: Julius Jaenzon
Art direction: Alexander Bako, Axel Esbensen

In commenting on Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) recently, I observed that its ending, in which Arthur and Doreen plan a wedding and dream of a home of their own, almost took on the character of a parody of a movie "happy ending," given their previous behavior and the blighted milieu in which they live. It's almost certainly what Reisz and Alan Sillitoe, adapting his own novel, intended. They were making a drama, which depends on belief, in this case an ironic credibility in which the viewer knows the story of Arthur and Doreen hasn't really ended. If drama depends on belief, then melodrama depends on feeling: a willingness to suspend credulity in favor of a kind of emotional certainty, a feeling that the way the story ends is emotionally, if not intellectually, right. That's why I can't quarrel with the ending of The Phantom Carriage, even though I know that the supposed reformation and redemption of David Holm is scarcely credible in terms of real-world alcoholism and abusiveness. It feels right in the context of a ghost story. Victor Sjöström's movie is one of the acknowledged masterpieces of silent film, notable for its lasting influence, not only on Sjöström's compatriot Ingmar Bergman, but even on a filmmaker as recent as Stanley Kubrick, who copied the harrowing scene in which David takes an ax to the door between him and his terrified wife when he filmed the "Here's Johnny!" sequence in The Shining (1980). This is also one of the few films by an actor-director in which the actor is as successful as the director. Granted, we may quibble about a few things, such as the fact that 50-year-old Hilda Borgström was a bit too old to play the mother of two small children (who never seem to age during the film). Or that the ghost story gets jettisoned in favor of the morality tale: If David wasn't really dead, then who gets to relieve Georges of his duty of driving the carriage? But this is melodrama and it's enough to say that it feels right.

The Outlaw and His Wife (Victor Sjöström, 1918)

The Outlaw and His Wife is a standard domestic melodrama made memorable by fine performances under the restrained direction of Victor Sjöström, who doesn't allow the usual stagy gesticulations that contemporary viewers often find ludicrous in silent films. Sjöström himself gives a fine performance in the role of the outlaw, Ejvind, who in the middle of a severe famine stole a sheep to feed his family and had to flee after breaking out of jail. He appears one day in a small Icelandic village under the assumed name Kári, and soon wins the heart of Halla (Edith Erastoff), a widow who runs a prosperous farm. Halla's brother-in-law, Björn (Nils Aréhn), also has designs on Halla, and when he discovers that Kári is a wanted man, Ejvind is forced to become a fugitive. Halla gives up everything to join him, and when we see them again they are living happily in the mountains with their small daughter. They are joined by Arnes (John Ekman), who is also on the run, but when Arnes begins to lust after Halla, trouble brews, compounded by the fact that Björn has never relinquished his pursuit of the couple. The film's story, based on a play by Jóhan Sigurjónsson, gains depth from the wild natural setting -- northern Sweden posing as Iceland -- in which the strong simple emotions of the tale seem integral. Sjöström makes the most of the mountain scenery, the waterfalls and hot springs, which are well-photographed by Julius Jaenzon. Sjöström did his own stunt work in a particularly hazardous scene in which Ejvind dangles on a rope from a cliff.