On the Sunny Side

Ingrid Bergman comes from an artistic family, and she's loved by the bohemians-in-formal-wear who surround her. Her paintings don't bring in any money, so she works during the day at a bank. At her birthday party, Edvin Adolphson, who has just published a successful book about his love affairs, asks her to come with her to Paris. She refuses, gets thrown out of her apartment, and the next day fired from her job. So she marries Lars Hanson, a wealthy landowner who, like Elmer Fudd, has a mansion and a yacht.

But he is a romantic guy who wants to win her love every day. His mother, Karin Swanström, is a formidable old dragon who thinks Miss Bergman married her son solely for money. It all comes to a head the evening before the big regatta, when Hanson invites Adolphson to the party he is throwing to celebrate the victory he is certain of.

Gustaf Molander's movie is labeled a comedy, and yes, it qualifies as one in that the ending finds the world on the screen better ordered than it was at the start. There's almost nothing in it amusing, as people raise mountains of misery from molehills of discontent, and Miss Swanström insists of digging up dirt, real and imagined, in order to make her son happy by making him miserable.

Still, it's interesting, thanks to the leads, particularly Hanson, and Molander's ability to tell a tale and make it cinematic. But I won't be looking at it again any time soon.