Den sorte drøm

A relatively sophisticated - and lengthy - drama which sees Asta Nielsen and future husband Urban Gad building on the success of the previous year's Afgrunden. She's a circus performer desired by two well-to-do men, one of whom's attention she welcomes while the other she repels. The pace is glacial by modern-day standards, but it's a quality production from a brief period when the Danes were among cinema's foremost film-producing countries.

I've seen a few Danish silent films from the 1910s now, and it seems many of them, if not most of them, are pretty much the same. They're sensational melodramas involving a tragic woman, vamp or femme fatale type character, in addition to the good guy and the bad guy. And, there's usually a circus involved. This film, "The Black Dream", contains all of that. I find it interesting to compare these films as a genre study.

"The Black Dream" is a weak entry. The two stars of this one, Asta Nielsen and Valdemar Psilander, made similar films during their careers. They seem to overact more than usual here. The camera is static, as usual then, although the scene dissection is decent for 1911. There are some noticeable moments of unpolished film-making. One scene, I think, actually ends a second or two after the director had called cut. Overall, the film dawdles.

One thing to look for, though: the use of a mirror in one scene to show action otherwise out of frame. This idea was taken further by August Bloom in another film from 1911, "Temptations of a Great City" (Ved Fængslets Port).

A plush melodrama starring Asta Nielsen as a circus performer dressed to the nines after making her entrance riding on horseback scantily clad; which attracts the interest of various formally dressed suitors.

Despite naturalistic acting it occasionally falls into archaisms like painted sets and one of the suitors emoting in full view of his rivals in love as in an old Mack Sennett comedy.

In the film "Den Sorte Drom", three of the most important people of Danish film-making were reunited - the great actress Asta Nielsen, the handsome fellow Valdemar Psilander and the worthy film director Urban Gad. This is a film that efficiently relates the story of Damen Stella, a horsewoman who performs in a circus and who arise great passion in men.

Due to her charms, Damen Stella will be wooed by two admirers - an old jeweler and a young Count. Damen Stella finally chooses the second one, an act that means that the horsewoman has a lot of horse sense.

The choice, based upon love, still immediately causes jealousy and suspicions between the two lovers. It becomes the cause of many disputes which are decided finally when all arguments are settled by the playing of a card duel between the two suitors (MEIN GOTT!!!.. what happened with the duels at dawn in misty sceneries?!... there's something rotten in Denmark, indeed… ). The young Count loses the play and has to pay a high amount of money that he doesn't have (ah, the complicated economic situation of the aristocracy!... ) to the jeweler and at once.

Obscure dealings will arise between the horsewoman, the jeweler and the Count. Central in this is a necklace, a jewel that will be finally be the cause of a tragic ending in this special love triangle.

Herr Urban Gad directed the film, as always, in an efficient and accurate way for a film characteristic of a melodrama from the teens of the 20th century. Gad got the help of a larger than life Damen Nielsen and even with Herr Psilander just playing Herr Psilander. (As a curiosity, at the end of a torrid love scene between the horsewoman and the Count, it is possible to be see how the actors cut the scene in a humorous way, a kind of false shot that it wasn't eliminated in the film.)

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count has to review the jewel case of my German fat fräulein in order to survey its content, lest there is some lacking.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/