Song of the Scarlet Flower
About Song of the Scarlet Flower
Olof Koskela, son of a rich farmer, is caught by his mother with the maid Elli, called the Gazelle. He fights his father and is thrown off the farm. Working as a log driver, he courts Kyllikki, daughter of the next farm, and she says she will wait until he stops drifting. He does not stay still.
Cast & crew
More about Song of the Scarlet Flower
Mauritz Stiller directed, and he and Gustaf Molander wrote the script. Molander is billed as Harald B. Harald. The source is Johannes Linnankoski's 1905 novel Laulu tulipunaisesta kukasta. Svenska Bio shot it in the summer of 1918 at the Lidingö studio and on the Faxälven near Långsele. It opened in Sweden on 14 April 1919, cleared from age 15. Lars Hanson plays Olof. Lillebil Ibsen, billed as Lillebil Christensen, plays Elli. Greta Almroth plays Annikki.
Themes
Making
The river work was shot on the Faxälven, not on a tank stage. Stiller used working water and the Lidingö studio for the farm interiors.
Reviews
Dagens Nyheter, reviewing the April 1919 opening, said Stiller had found a concentration and an artistic spareness he had not reached before, and that over the strongest scenes there is a breath of high adventure that almost stops the breath.
Audiences
It was a popular success in Sweden and was sold on to about fifty countries.
Music
Silent. Armas Järnefelt is credited with the music.
Preservation
The original negative was lost in the 1940s. Surviving prints showed the film had been tinted and toned, and a digital restoration rebuilt those colors.
Notes
- Swedish titles include Sången om den eldröda blomman. Britain also called it The Flame of Life. Germany used Das Lied der roten Blume.
- The film was sold to about fifty countries.
- Later Swedish adaptations of the same novel were directed by Per-Axel Branner (1934) and Gustaf Molander (1956).
- Axel Hultman and Louise Fahlman play Olof's parents. John Ekman plays the log-drivers' foreman.
- Armas Järnefelt is the composer attached to the film.
Scenes
- Olof's mother finds him with the maid, and the fight with his father ends in banishment.
- On the river drive he gets Kyllikki's promise to wait.
Influenced by
- Johannes Linnankoski's novel Laulu tulipunaisesta kukasta (1905)
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-song-of-the-scarlet-flower)
