Evening star., 1952-12-06

The Swedes do not export many
movies to this country but when
they do. the films are the sort
which command attention.
Such a one is Miss Julie" new
attraction at Roth's Plaza theater.
This is an unabaShed. dramati-
cally adorned production of Au-
gust Strindberg's play written in
1888, which turned out to be one
of the enduring Shockers in the
whole field of romantic melo-
drama. The current version,
dominated by the performance of
Anita Bjork. sees no reason why
it should take back a single one
of Strindberg's soaring words. Or
to temper the tumultuouS passion
of the storys movement.
This approach to miss Julie"
IS precisely the one calculated to
make it proper screen monu-
ment to a dramatist of Strind-
berg's majestic eloquence.
The film directed by Alf Sjoberg
IS. on the surface, a tempestuous
love story replete with overtones
of class antipathy in the Sweden
Of 1888 It's setting is one of the
great feudal estates of the period.
Here, at the time of the May fes-
tival, the masters bitterly bored
daughter (Miss Bjork lets a petu-
lantly fateful eye fall upon a.
huskey lackey among the serv-
ants.
The object of her speculative
glance is young. handsome and
virile. male of promise in con-
trast with the pallid suitor to-
whom Miss Julie is affianced. At
another season, this situation
might have been comfortable but
1t is May, festival time, and the
blood is running warm. What
starts as play between beautiful
young mistress of the household
and servant ends up as wanton
and destructive emotion.
The aftermath, presented with
the full force of Strindberg's
dramatic irony, is complete re-
versal of the lovers positions. 1t is
the servant who now is master,
the conscienceleSS animal who can
suggest to his patrician victim
that suicide is the plausible es-
cape from their sin.
1t is Director Sjoberg's patent
conviction in making Miss Julie"
that it would be the sheerest folly
to retreat from Strindbergs I'M
compromising realism. This pro-
vides the Plaza film with some
sequences of considerable shock
value and others with an excess
sive amount of detail of day-to-
day life in feudal systems.
There is a need on the part
of the performers in the film to
summon their most passionate
performances. The response of the
key players to this is undeniably
impressive.
It has been a long time since
moviegoers laid eyes upon such
a neurotic and attractive girl as
the heroine played by Miss Bjork.
Long before she totters into the
welcoming arms of her fathers
lackey, her violent destiny is ap-
parent. Her anguish not only
differs in kind from those of
the earthly servants, but enor-
mouSly in the degree of suffering
1t imposes. For all the outward
evidence to the contrary, the
feudal society which her class
dominates has imposed upon her
an agony of hollowness and bore
dom that is inescapable.
Miss Bjork manages exquisitely
the expression of the heroine's
desperation in one of the sea-
sons most memorable perform
anceS.
Ulf Paine, her partner in the
story's spectacular sin. is also eX-
pertly played to disclose the ir-
responsible, hypnotic power of the
basically simple male.
The focus of Miss Julie" is not
exclusively reserved to these two,
but they are the story's dominat
figures. They miss none Of its
savage overtones.