Today's discovery: one of the better dance scenes I have seen since Gene Kelly set a ballet stage on fire while wielding a scimitar in hot pants recently, not because I am particularly a fan of jitterbugging, but because Nils Poppe is a lovely physical comedian. I had no idea. I was aware of his reputation as Sweden's answer to Charlie Chaplin, but I had never found any of his movies even on VHS in this country; he's more a dramatic actor in the two films I know him from, The Seventh Seal (1957) and The Devil's Eye (Djävulens öga, 1960).1 Well, the internet may be for porn, but it is also for old movies, and here is Sten Stensson Stéen, the tightly wound law student from Eslöv who started life onstage in 1903 and kept right up into the '60's (or the present day, if one counts popular consciousness as opposed to performance. There appears to be a hotel named after him). I'm so pleased to have discovered him and not wound up with Google PTSD in the process.
And here is Nils Poppe, who with any luck is tagged to more than just someone's rip of The Seventh Seal. I will figure out how to embed YouTube videos later—I spent far too much time this evening throwing my brain and a Swedish dictionary against Wikipedia in a language I do not speak.2 For now, follow the link the old-fashioned way and enjoy! I can't speak to the rest of Sten Stensson Comes to Town (Sten Stensson kommer till stan, 1945), but Poppe's almost giving Ray Bolger a run for his money here. His partner is no slouch either. (Since the entire conceit of the routine is that she's slinging him through the moves like a ragdoll as he attempts fruitlessly to argue with her, she's the one performing almost all the lifts and drops; and for the joke to work, she has to look hardly out of breath while he's coming unglued. I don't think she's in high heels, but we can argue about the backwards.) I wish I could tell what he's lecturing the crowd about past the brief gloss provided by the page: I can translate his exclamation at the end of the scene, but that's no use; it's already the title of the clip. Any Swedish-speaking lurkers are welcome to step forward now.
As a bonus, did you know Peter Lorre could sing?
1. I have already rhapsodized about The Seventh Seal at length. The Devil's Eye is a sort of metaphysical sex farce in which the damned soul of Don Juan is temporarily reprieved from hell in order to seduce a minister's daughter who has so far resisted the temptation of premarital sex with her fiancé—a maiden's chastity is a sty in the Devil's eye, the opening titles tell us, and the Devil is taking no chances. With the legendary lover go his resignedly faithful servant and an occasionally cat-shaped demon charged to keep an eye on both of them; each of these three infernal visitors will match temptations with a member of the minister's household, respectively his daughter, his wife, and his own unworldly self. I devote a footnote to this movie not because it's in my top ten list of comedies, but because it's at once an outlier among Bergman's films and completely consistent with the thread of folktale and mystery play that informs movies like The Seventh Seal, The Magician (Ansiktet, 1958), The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan, 1960), and therefore weird enough to take note of. In any case, the minister is played by Nils Poppe.
2. And as much as it worries me, I must thank the internet again. When I tried this same research online ten years ago, I couldn't get much more than IMDb. Now I know that I need to pray to the gods of Criterion, because otherwise I don't see how I'll find copies of Money—A Tragicomic Tale (Pengar—en tragikomisk saga, 1946) or Bom the Soldier (Soldat Bom, 1948), two of Poppe's star-making turns. Charlie Chaplin kept a print of Pengar in his private library, all right? How much more of an endorsement do you need?
And here is Nils Poppe, who with any luck is tagged to more than just someone's rip of The Seventh Seal. I will figure out how to embed YouTube videos later—I spent far too much time this evening throwing my brain and a Swedish dictionary against Wikipedia in a language I do not speak.2 For now, follow the link the old-fashioned way and enjoy! I can't speak to the rest of Sten Stensson Comes to Town (Sten Stensson kommer till stan, 1945), but Poppe's almost giving Ray Bolger a run for his money here. His partner is no slouch either. (Since the entire conceit of the routine is that she's slinging him through the moves like a ragdoll as he attempts fruitlessly to argue with her, she's the one performing almost all the lifts and drops; and for the joke to work, she has to look hardly out of breath while he's coming unglued. I don't think she's in high heels, but we can argue about the backwards.) I wish I could tell what he's lecturing the crowd about past the brief gloss provided by the page: I can translate his exclamation at the end of the scene, but that's no use; it's already the title of the clip. Any Swedish-speaking lurkers are welcome to step forward now.
As a bonus, did you know Peter Lorre could sing?
1. I have already rhapsodized about The Seventh Seal at length. The Devil's Eye is a sort of metaphysical sex farce in which the damned soul of Don Juan is temporarily reprieved from hell in order to seduce a minister's daughter who has so far resisted the temptation of premarital sex with her fiancé—a maiden's chastity is a sty in the Devil's eye, the opening titles tell us, and the Devil is taking no chances. With the legendary lover go his resignedly faithful servant and an occasionally cat-shaped demon charged to keep an eye on both of them; each of these three infernal visitors will match temptations with a member of the minister's household, respectively his daughter, his wife, and his own unworldly self. I devote a footnote to this movie not because it's in my top ten list of comedies, but because it's at once an outlier among Bergman's films and completely consistent with the thread of folktale and mystery play that informs movies like The Seventh Seal, The Magician (Ansiktet, 1958), The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan, 1960), and therefore weird enough to take note of. In any case, the minister is played by Nils Poppe.
2. And as much as it worries me, I must thank the internet again. When I tried this same research online ten years ago, I couldn't get much more than IMDb. Now I know that I need to pray to the gods of Criterion, because otherwise I don't see how I'll find copies of Money—A Tragicomic Tale (Pengar—en tragikomisk saga, 1946) or Bom the Soldier (Soldat Bom, 1948), two of Poppe's star-making turns. Charlie Chaplin kept a print of Pengar in his private library, all right? How much more of an endorsement do you need?
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