The Saga of Gosta Berling [Gösta Berling’s Saga] **** (1924, Greta Garbo, Lars Hanson) – Classic Movie Review 5324

In this extremely intriguing curio 1924 Swedish silent movie epic, Greta Garbo stars as Elizabeth Dohna in her first leading part in a feature-length film, co-starring Lars Hanson, and directed by her mentor, the celebrated Mauritz Stiller.

Hanson plays defrocked minister Gösta Berling, who arrives at the manor house of countess Märtha Dohna (Ellen Hartman-Cederström) to be tutor her beautiful stepdaughter Elizabeth (Garbo) and they fall in love.

It is a beautifully filmed, bona fide silent classic, full of memorable scenes.

The Swedish Film Institute restoration version runs 185 minutes. About 450 metres of the film are still missing. The film was released as two parts in Scandinavia, Gösta Berlings saga I on 10 March 1924 and II on 17 March, with a handy 88-minute one-part export version for the rest of the world.

Her next film is The Joyless Street. Garbo made a relatively small number of films, just 13 silent movies (one of them, The Divine Woman, lost) and 15 talkies up to Two-Faced Woman in 1941.

 © Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5324

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