Sången om den eldröda blomman

I don't know why a story about a farmer's son with an endless string of love affairs who become a rafter should interest the public but I guess that Svensk Filmindustri (SF) wanted a project that would keep director Gustaf Molander occupied. Melodrama should fit him like a glove after 30 years of directing but the script is simply over the top. The movie is overlong and the one exciting part, the river contest between Olof Koskela and Falk over the attention of Kylikki, the pretty farmer's daughter, should have finished the movie.

The rest of the movie is predictable and anybody can tell what will happen after the establishing shot of the first meeting between the rafters and the farmer's sons as they enter a village.

Anita Björk as Kylikki is doing her best with her part but good acting can not save a script based on a stuffy novel. In two smaller roles, Edvin Adolphson, as Kylikki's father, and Axel Slangus, as the chief rafter, are wonderful.

I had to see this movie, since it's so old, but still in color! It's also the first film in the Swedish cinemascope format; AgaScope. But I have to say I want the time I spent on this movie, back. Of course, as always in old movies, the colors are beautiful, but that doesn't help since the dialogue is old fashioned with words and expressions that no one in Sweden would use today. The most annoying part, though, are the endless amount of could-be-nude-scenes. A girl is taking her clothes of to swim across a river; but she hides behind a bush and hides her breasts with her arms. Then in another scene, a man tells a girl to take her clothes of, but he's so stunned about the fact that she actually does it, so he tells her to stop. I'm not saying that nudity could save an entire movie, but it would at least make it worth watching once. Now it's just an old, crappy movie with ridiculous characters and a poorly written screenplay.