La fille des marais

It was Detlef Sierck's (aka Douglas Sirk)second effort in the Hitlerian years when he felt ill-at-ease (He would later call one of his films " Hitler's madman"(1943) and he would give his definitive account of his vision of the Nazi madness in "A time to love and a time to die" (1958)

Based on a Selma Lagerlöf 's short story ,"Das Mädchen..." belongs to Sierck's long series of melodramas ,a genre he was one of the indisputable masters .Probably influenced by Frank Borzage's characters ,he made Helga a pure heroine who gave everything : she refuses that the father of her (not yet born) child swears on the Bible because she wants to save his soul;she wants to save Karsten so that he can marry Gertrud and find happiness.

A conventional story,but extremely well told .Good depiction of the peasants ,who proudly show their belongings,farm ,cattle et al ("Fünf Kühe und Kalb .....").The wedding scene modestly predates the grandiose scenes of the future melodramas such as the funeral in "Imitation of Life" (1959)

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"Angèle" ,Marcel Pagnol (1934)

"Lucky star" Frank Borzage (1929)

The core of this film is a girl's sacrifice, a motive familiar from the better-known Lagerlof adaptation "The Phantom Carriage". It is perhaps interesting that this story was also previously adapted as a silent film by Victor Sjostrom.

The movie is quite faithful to the book. There are only minor differences, where Sirk uses nicely advantages of visual presentation; for example the scene of committing perjury at the beginning is followed by a close-up of a woman's hands, twitching in fear of witnessing a deadly sin. Also, several references to supernatural things are added, which is a nice nod to other Lagerlof works (a short story about an elf guarding farmers' houses; unfortunately I don't know its English title).

All in all, enough reasons for lovers of classic movies / adaptations / romances to see this one too.