Ljuvlig är sommarnatten

This is another very satisfying film from Director Arne Mattsson. A young woman is about to marry into the wealthiest family in town. Hours before the wedding, the woman disappears. The wedding has to be called off and the police have to be called in. The police's initial probe reveals everything was normal. The missing woman was dependable and unlikely to run away. Her family and friends are solid and unlikely to be involved in the disappearance. However, the veteran detective called into the case knows their are hidden stories and he must dig to find them.

I won't delve deeper into the plot because there are a few twists right from the beginning. Almost everyone has a hidden story. People do not always behave as they should. Just like real life these characters have their peccadilloes.The detective is relentless. He gathers everyone in, learns the story bit by bit and eventually finds the truth. As the film closes, the detective says to a colleague, "This job disgusts me.". Which I took to mean, it's the people who disgust him. The hidden lives most people seem to live.

Apparently "Ljuvlig är Sommarnatten" aka "Lovely is the Summer Night" (1961) is a follow-up to a 1960 film called "När Mörkret Faller", which probably explains why the central character of the police inspector is not really properly introduced - he just inserts himself into the plot. The film was directed by Arne Mattsson, who also made the Detective Hillman series around that time; like those films I've seen, his plodding sense of pacing makes watching the crime investigation process a bit of a chore, but he does show a bit more style here, especially in some very smooth mergings of the present and the past in the same shot. **1/2 out of 4.