Loading
Stiller, Svensk Filmindustri, 1920, from a Hungarian play, not a Lagerlöf novel. Professor Leo (Anders de Wahl) studies the sex life of beetles; his wife Irene (Tora Teje) is bored; sculptor Preben (Lars Hanson) and a young aviator wait their turn. SFI notes the rooms, shops, opera, and airplane: Stockholm as a modern city, far from Körkarlen's streets. Lubitsch is often said to have watched it before The Marriage Circle. The joke is the lecture. The plot is who goes home.
In two programmes
The same decade, the other Stiller: a sex comedy about a professor who studies beetles while his wife arranges her afternoons. The lecture on beetle mating is the film's best scene and its thesis. Lubitsch is said to have watched it, and The Marriage Circle suggests he took notes.
Wanting as an afternoon's arrangement. The professor lectures on beetles while his wife decides between a sculptor and an aviator, and nobody is punished for it. Watch who pays: for once, nobody, which is the joke and the scandal.
Cast & crew
Also streaming
Loading films
