Le printemps de la vie

This fine three-part picture is notable not only for its good story, fine settings and excellent acting, but for the quality of its photography and its light effects. The latter factor is of so pronounced a value that it will be noticed by those who usually give little heed to anything but the story and its working out. The picture also is valuable as furnishing another answer to the question: Why multiple reels? It comes on a day when the regular program of the licensed companies is weak and colorless; it provides real entertainment. No one will deny that in a company producing single and multiple-reel pictures the standard of quality of the latter is higher. In "The Springtime of Life" there is a well-staged theater fire. - The Moving Picture World, August 16, 1913

It all begins with a woman dying. Her husband. Georg af Klercker, walked out on her and their little girlsome time ago, but she send him a letter and the child anyway. He's an important man, a councillor, and doesn't have time for a child, so he sends her to Astrid Engelbrecht for rearing. She, in turn, sells the child to a man who sends her out to beg. When Victor Sjöström sees her and reads a story about Miss Engelbrecht, he takes her home to be reared by mother.

That's Act 1. In the second act, the child has grown up to be Selma Wiklund af Klercker, who falls for lodger Mauritz Stiller's line of malarkey. The two future directors have a duel, and Miss Engelbrecht runs away in shame. We know, however, that a surprising number of these people will coincidentally run into each other in Act III, where there will be Surprising Revelations.

Stiller and Sjöström are, of course, two of the best known Swedish directors of the Silent era, so it's interesting to watch them in front of the camera. They're tall, good-looking men who strike their poses well, but given the rather melodramatic story and direction of Paul Garbagni in his first feature, it's more concentrated on telling the story than allowing the actors to do anything interesting. The set-piece duel is rather rushed through, and a theater fire likewise, in order that we be told what is happening via handwritten notes.

this is one of those movies that went missing for eighty or ninety years, only to turn up at the Cinemateque Francaise. It lacked titles, so it had to be restored, and a good job of work was done on that. Still, it's mainly interesting for the two men in front of the camera who would move behind it.