Den forsvundne pølsemaker

An attempt at a screwball comedy, two private detectives are searching for a missing "sausage maker" but end up entangled in the aftermath of a jewellery heist. One would need to be exceptionally forgiving to label this as a good film. Despite featuring the era's most renowned comedian in the lead role, his comedic prowess fails to shine in this production. The film's editing and transitions are bizarre at best, the timing is askew, and the narrative lacks coherence. It neither makes sense nor compensates for its deficiencies with good humor. Its main claim to fame remains the title song, while the rest of the film is disappointingly unremarkable.

The Sausage-maker Who Disappered ("Den forsvundne pølsemaker") was directed by Toralf Sandø, and is his second movie. He later on became one of the grand film makers in Norway when it comes to numbers.

This movie became a huge hit in the newly nazi- German occupied Norway when it premiered december 26th 1941, though not at all as big as most other war movies. But later on it has held as one of the most important ones when it came to bringing laughter in war time.

The movie's main selling pont was the tall comedian Leif Juster who's comical talent not only was immense, but is still linger in Norway due to among other movies this one. This was the movie that he really showed his slapstick talent for the first time.

The movie has some bad editing, and maybe also some bad dialog, but still this is much beloved. It's made on a minimal war budget, and you could also say it's supposed to be a litt chaotic.

The movie has a lot of gags of what you lack during war time, without addressing the war. It's all about food, sigarettes, chocolate and alcohol, and even ration cards.

The story is about a well known sausage-maker, Herman Brand (H. Brand is read out like "håbrann" in norwegian, which was the fish Norwegians had to see their sausages filled with n the lack of meat during the war), famous for his great sausages. But one day he disappears without a trace, except some broken glass and some blood on the floor. His wife hired the two hopeless private detectives Gløgg (which translates to Smart) and Rask (Quick) to find out what has happend. And the sillyness begins.

The film is based upon basert på the crimeparody-novel "Den forsvunne pølsemaker" written by lawyer Lorentz Normann Kvam (under the pseudo Rocambole Pedersen).

This film was made by the Nazi director Leif Sinding's old company Merkur Film, which is quite astonishing. Sinding was willingly put in control on Norwegian film industry by the Nazis,but had to sell his company Merkur Film. This movie went through the censorship.

Director Toralf Sandø was a political opponent, and just after the war went to make another classic "Englandsfarere" ("We Lave for England") in 1946.

This film is also famous for it's title cut, "Pølsemaker , pølsemaker hvor har du gjort av deg" ("Sausage-maker where are you") which became a huge hit.

Is this film funny? Well, a little, but not at much as you would wish. But if you put it into the setting of war, and also that this was a comic relief under the war, this movie becomes important in the Norwegian movie canon.

This movie is made available through DVD recently, and in 2023 was released on interregional Blu-Ray Disk by Norwegian Film Classics as the fourth release in a new series on classics, NFK0004, with subtitles in English, and is supposed to be held in stock for film lovers.

Good, funny and not over the top Norwegian humor. One of the best Norwegian films I have ever seen. Another big plus is that it has aged pretty well too, not too much sexism and stuff like that, like other 1940 movies around the world.

The chemistry between the characters are great as well, I was very positively surprised at the level of acting and quality. Some of the jokes are a little outdated but that's too be expected.

Really loved the one scene filmed outside the castle in Norway, it was cool to see how the streets of Oslo looked over 80 years ago, this film is like a little time capsule both in language, environment and characters.. 10/10 would recommend:)

Apparently inspired by the escapades of the American comedy team Laurel and Hardy, DEN FORSVUNDNE PØLSEMAKER teams up two of the most celebrated Norwegian comedians of their time, Leif Juster and Ernst Diesen, as detectives in search of a sausage-maker who has mysteriously disappeared. The film made Juster, already a well-known stage presence, into a household name also among movie audiences, and holds up well to this day. One part may be said to even be iconic: Juster's frustrated "song about the disappeared sausage-maker," which is often thought of as the thing most freuently associated with him to this day.

To illustrate how big the film was upon its initial release, I could mention that my father, a small boy at that time, claims to have literally cried when he arrived too late for tickets! His own father had promised to take him along to the film, but had to postpone it several times; and when they finally did go, all seats were taken.