The President
About The President
On his father's last day, Karl Victor von Sendlingen swears on the family arms that he will never marry a commoner. As a young man he wants to marry the governess Hermine Lippert, is reminded of the oath, and leaves her. She has a daughter. Years later Karl Victor (Halvard Hoff) is president of the town court and finds that the prisoner Victorine Lippert, charged in the death of her newborn, is that daughter. He refuses to sit on the trial. She is sentenced to death. He has her taken out of prison during a banquet in his honor, and they leave the country. When he later confesses and is told that a public admission will bring her back to serve the sentence, he goes to the ruined family castle and kills himself.
Cast & crew
More about The President
Carl Theodor Dreyer's first feature, adapted from Karl Emil Franzos's 1884 novel Der Präsident. Nordisk produced it. Shot in the summer of 1918 on Gotland. It opened in Sweden on 1 February 1919 and in Denmark on 9 February 1920. Danish intertitles.
Themes
Background
A Nordisk picture begun in 1918, Dreyer's first time directing a feature, from a German novel of 1884 about a judge and an oath not to marry beneath his rank.
Making
Dreyer shot the film on Gotland in the summer of 1918, a year before the Swedish premiere.
Preservation
A viewing copy is on the Internet Archive under this title.
Notes
- Wikidata lists the running time as 89 minutes. The English Wikipedia gives 75 minutes.
- Elith Pio plays the father, Franz Victor. Olga Raphael Linden plays Victorine. Betty Kirkeby plays Hermine. Richard Christensen plays the lawyer Georg Berger. Axel Madsen plays Vice-President Werner.
- The story is cut into three periods and told with flashbacks.
- Hans Waagø is the cinematographer credited on Wikidata.
Scenes
- Franz Victor makes his son swear on the coat of arms in the castle ruins.
- Karl Victor reads Victorine Lippert's name on the list of cases.
- He returns to the ruins at the end.
Influenced by
- Karl Emil Franzos's novel Der Präsident (1884)
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-the-president)
