Film Review: Sir Arne's Treasure (Herr Arnes pengar, 1919)

Few relationships between a writer and a film industry have been as fruitful as the relationship between Swedish Nobel Prize laureate Selma Lagerlöf and the nascent Swedish film industry in the first decades of the 20th century. Many of Lagerlöf’s novels were adapted into films that became big hits, and some are even a century later highly regarded as classics of the silent era. One of those films with a high reputation is Sir Arne’s Treasure, a 1919 period drama directed by Mauritz Stiller.

The film is based on Lagerlöf’s 1903 novel The Treasure. The plot is set in Sweden in the second half of the 16th century, during the reign of King Johan III. The monarch, paranoid about possible plots, has decided to expel or imprison Scottish mercenaries, and three of them – Sir Archie (played by Richard Lund), Sir Filip (played by Erik Stocklassa), and Sir Donald (played by Bror Berger) – end up locked in the tower. One day, they manage to overpower the guard, find the keys to the cell, and escape. Their journey back home to Scotland occurs when Sweden experiences the worst winter in living memory, and the trio, who try to pass as travelling tanners, end up on the island of Marstrand, which became accessible from the Swedish mainland because of the ice. One of the most prominent locals is Sir Arne (played by Hjalmar Selander), a vicar and owner of a large chest filled with silver coins, which, according to legend, is cursed for being taken from a Catholic monastery closed during the Reformation. The Scottish mercenaries sneak into Sir Arne’s house and massacre him and his household before taking possession of the chest. They, however, can’t leave the island and instead use the money from the chest to pretend to be wealthy merchants. The only survivor of the massacre is Elsalill (played by Mary Johnson), a beautiful maid who hid behind the wall while her foster sister was murdered by the Scots. She meets Sir Archie, who is awaiting the ice to break so he can travel back to Scotland. The two of them, not knowing their real identities, fall in love, but Elsalill soon has strange dreams and visions about her dead sister, leading her to the inn where Sir Archie and his murdering friends have taken lodging.

The Treasure, with its combination of different genres – historical fiction, crime thriller, melodrama, and even some supernatural elements – was quite appealing to Mauritz Stiller and his co-writer Gustaf Molander (who would in 1954 direct the eponymous sound remake). Stiller and Molander have, however, toned down some of the supernatural elements of the script, and Stiller, as director, strove for more realism, putting the Swedish location during winter to good use. Stiller isn’t particularly innovative or showy in his techniques, although some basic special effects are used for the scenes of characters’ visions and dreams. On the other hand, action scenes seem exciting and involve some good stunt work for early cinema standards. What the film lacks, however, is proper closure. The melodramatic finale is mishandled and slightly confusing, with the audience having to rely on intertitles to know what is really going on. The acting is theatrical, which was quite typical for silent cinema, with Richard Lund relying more on the image of the “dark and dangerous” heartthrob rather than on any acting ability, and the same can be said of Mary Johnson, the actress who would later continue her career in Weimar Germany. Sir Arne’s Treasure is a watchable but slightly disappointing film for those who have built their expectations on the claims of the more enthusiastic fans of silent cinema. It looks inferior to the works of Victor Sjöström from the same period. Stiller’s best work – the epic period drama The Saga of Gösta Berling, which turned out to be his ticket to Hollywood – was made five years later and looks much superior to this.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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