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Sunday, June 11, 2017

June Night (1940) [TV-PG] ****


June Night was the last film Ingrid Bergman made in her native Sweden before moving permanently to Hollywood. This 1940 Per Lindberg picture is pretty straight soap opera, with Bergman playing a girl named Kerstin Norbäck who, in the movie's first scene, is shot by her sailor boyfriend Nils Asklund (Gunnar Sjöberg) when she tries to walk out on him. A trial and small-town scandal follows, so Kerstin changes her name to Sara Nordana and moves to Stockholm to start over. She swears off her wanton ways, but her resolve will be tested when she catches the eye of a handsome doctor Stefan von Bremen (Olof Widgren) and also runs across the nosy reporter Willy Wilson (Hasse Ekman) who sensationalized her story and dubbed her the wounded swan. Both men become obsessed with her, and both are dating female friends of Sara's. Stefan is dating the nurse Åsa (Marianne Löfgren) who helped Sara when she arrived in Stockholm, and Willy is dating Nickan (Marianne Aminoff), one of Sara’s roommates. All these affairs come to a climax the night Nils Asklund finds Kerstin/Sara working at the Swan Pharmacy, pays her a visit, and the several romantic plotlines intersect.

June Night is a little slow. The script, written by Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius from a novel by Tora Nordström-Bonnier, relies heavily on suspension-of-disbelief coincidences and never delves very deeply into its characters. Unfortunately, this is especially true for Kerstin/Sara, who gets less introspection and development than the supporting characters; Bergman's charisma and screen presence are all that fuel her portrayal, and the actress brings a gravitas to the role that wouldn't otherwise be there. I suppose Lindberg and Hyltén-Cavallius could be striving to make Kerstin/Sara an unknowable and mysterious figure, which might lend some explanation to why everyone is so fascinated by her (and why she does so much damage without even trying), but if so, it doesn't really work.

Labels: drama, Ingrid Bergman




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