Atlantis
About Atlantis
Dr. Friedrich von Kammacher (Olaf Fønss) leaves Denmark after his wife is institutionalized with a brain disorder. In Berlin he falls for the dancer Ingigerd Hahlstrom (Ida Orloff), then follows her onto the liner Roland when she sails for New York. Halfway across, the ship hits an unseen object and sinks. He gets Ingigerd into a lifeboat. She will not stay with him in New York. In the mountains, news comes that his wife has died. He collapses, and the sculptor Eva Burns (Ebba Thomsen) nurses him back.
Cast & crew
More about Atlantis
August Blom directed for Nordisk. Axel Garde and Karl Ludwig Schröder adapted Gerhart Hauptmann's 1912 novel. Ole Olsen produced. Johan Ankerstjerne photographed it. Released on 26 December 1913. The novel had already been serialized before the Titanic sank, but the film, out a year after that disaster, was attacked for the resemblance. Norway banned it as being in poor taste. The production cost was not matched by the returns at the time. It later became Nordisk's most watched film.
Themes
Background
A Nordisk spectacle of late 1913, tied in the public mind to the Titanic even though Hauptmann's novel was already in print before the liner sank.
Reviews
Film historian Erik Ulrichsen called it one of the first modern films.
Preservation
Restored and issued on laserdisc in 1993 and DVD in 2005. A copy is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- Charles Unthan plays Arthur Stoss, an armless virtuoso.
- Mihály Kertész, later Michael Curtiz, plays Friedrich's colleague Hans Fuellenberg.
- A two-minute alternate ending was shot for Russian audiences.
- A restoration was issued on laserdisc in 1993 and on DVD in 2005, with tinting rebuilt from a short version at the National Film Center in Japan.
Scenes
- The Roland strikes something unseen and goes down with boats still unlaunched.
- Friedrich carries Ingigerd to a lifeboat.
Influenced by
- Gerhart Hauptmann's novel Atlantis (1912)
Also available
- Internet Archive (atlantis-1913-720p)
