The Abyss
About The Abyss
Knud Svane, a vicar's son, meets the piano teacher Magda Vang on a tram and takes her to his parents. She will not go to Sunday service and gets him to take her to the circus instead. That night the rider Rudolf Stern climbs in her window and carries her off on horseback. He flirts with other women. She cannot leave him. Fired from the circus, he lives on what she earns playing piano in the park. She coils his lasso around him and dances against him. He later beats her. She stabs him. The last shot is Magda walked down to a police wagon.
Cast & crew
More about The Abyss
Urban Gad wrote and directed. Hjalmar Davidsen produced. Alfred Lind photographed. Kosmorama released it in Denmark on 12 September 1910 at the Kosmorama cinema in Copenhagen. It runs 38 minutes. Asta Nielsen plays Magda. Robert Dinesen plays Knud. Poul Reumert plays Rudolf. Theatre directors in Copenhagen boycotted the premiere. Gad and Nielsen had made the film to get that audience's attention. Norway and Sweden cut it over the eroticism of Nielsen's dancing.
Themes
Making
Gad and Nielsen aimed the premiere at Copenhagen's theatre directors. Those directors stayed away. The Kosmorama public did not.
Audiences
Copenhagen theatre directors boycotted the 12 September 1910 premiere at the Kosmorama. The film still made Nielsen known abroad, and censors in Norway and Sweden cut the dance.
Look
Alfred Lind photographed the tram meeting, the circus, and the park where Magda plays after Rudolf is fired.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
Prints survive. Norway and Sweden censored the dance on first release.
Notes
- Also released as Woman Always Pays. The Danish title is Afgrunden.
- Hans Neergaard plays the vicar Peder Svane. Hulda Didrichsen plays his wife. Emilie Sannom plays the singer Lilly d'Estrelle.
- The lasso dance is the scene stills label the gaucho dance.
- Nielsen's performance in this film is what carried her name outside Denmark.
- Rudolf comes in through the bedroom window, not from a stage door.
Scenes
- Rudolf climbs through Magda's window and takes her away on horseback.
- She wraps his lasso around him and dances against his body.
- After she stabs him, police lead her down to a wagon.
Also available
- Internet Archive (Afgrunden_1910)
- Wikimedia Commons (The Abyss (1910).webm)
