Thomas Graal's Best Child
About Thomas Graal's Best Child
The film opens by replaying the end of Thomas Graal's Best Film, then marries the screenwriter to Bessie. At the wedding Bessie announces that the first child must be a girl. Thomas wants a boy. The row runs through the household until a scandal stops it.
Cast & crew
More about Thomas Graal's Best Child
Mauritz Stiller directed. Gustaf Molander wrote the script under the name Harald B. Harald. Henrik Jaenzon photographed it. Axel Esbensen was the designer. Shooting was in April and May 1918. It is a comedy in five acts, 1,836 meters, tinted black and white, about 89 minutes at 18 frames per second. Censorship number 20336, 19 October 1918, from age 15. It opened at the Röda Kvarn in Stockholm on 21 October 1918 and stayed three weeks. In the United States it was called Marriage à la Mode.
Themes
Making
Stiller shot the church scenes at Lidingö Church and street scenes in Lärkstaden, with studio work at Svenska Bio on Lidingö and a set in the upper foyer of the Röda Kvarn, the same house that premiered it.
Audiences
At the Stockholm opening it ran three weeks at the Röda Kvarn, a long stay for that theater in 1918.
Look
Henrik Jaenzon shot the tinted 35mm picture, including the exterior of Lidingö Church and the Lärkstaden streets.
Music
Silent. Rudolf Sahlberg arranged the music used at the Röda Kvarn premiere.
Preservation
Prints survive. The censor noted that copies differed by about a hundred meters, roughly five minutes at the speed of the day. A circulating copy is tinted.
Notes
- Victor Sjöström returns as Thomas. Karin Molander returns as Bessie, now Bessie Graal.
- Albin Lavén, who played Bessie's father in the 1917 film, had died. Josef Fischer plays Alexander Douglas here.
- Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson plays Bessie's mother Clotilde. Axel Nilsson plays the servant John.
- Copies submitted to the censor ran between 1,724 and 1,836 meters.
- Rudolf Sahlberg arranged music for the Röda Kvarn run in Stockholm.
- Edvin Adolphson is one of the wedding guests.
Scenes
- The opening replays the finish of the 1917 film before the new marriage starts.
- At the wedding Bessie tells the room the child will be a girl, and Thomas wants a boy.
Influenced by
- Thomas Graal's Best Film (1917)
Also available
- Internet Archive (1918-le-meilleur-enfant-de-thomas-graal-thomas-graals-basta-barn)
