Burl reviews Walpurgis Night! (1935)

Happy (Almost) Walpurgis Night, it’s Burl! Ha ha, yes, believe it or not Walpurgis Night is nearly upon us once again! It always seems to come up so fast, sneaking up as it does right after that other major spring holiday, The Night I Watch The Fog For The Millionth Time! But of course, the proper way to celebrate Walpurgis Night is to watch Walpurgis Night, and that’s precisely what I have done! Ha ha!

With its waltzy soundtrack and overheated dialogue, it’s just the kind of melodrama Careful modeled itself on, though without quite so many mountains as in that more recent picture! (Ha ha, there is a scene of people skiing in the mountains however, and a nifty ski lodge also!) It’s a love triangle plot, spiced up with some blackmail, some duplicity, and a good deal of misunderstanding! Ha ha, in 1930s Stockholm, apparently a world in which everyone is known by their titles, VP Borg works in his office with his beautiful but shy secretary Lena Bergstrom, who is in love with him! But VP Borg is married to the callow and inconstant Clary, who never wants to have children, and who has scheduled a secret assignation on Walpurgis Night!

Turns out her appointment is with "Dr." Smith, the country abortion doctor (the quotation marks are apparently part of his name), but this is successfully kept a secret both from her husband and from the gossip rags, for the moment at least! Meanwhile Lena quits working for Borg, but not before they have a nice time dancing on Walpurgis Night! Lena’s father, Editor Bergstrom, the editor of the Morning Post, catches wind of the date and believes it to be a full-blown lovemaking affair; and when evidence is found connecting Borg to "Dr." Smith, he jumps to what is for a fellow like Editor Bergstrom the worst possible conclusion! After Lena’s self-removal to the mountains comes a blackmail attempt on Clary, which climaxes in murder! Lena returns from her skiing trip and Editor Bergstrom acts, for a time, like a foolish hardhead; meanwhile VP Borg finds himself in such straits that he runs off and joins the Foreign Legion! Ha ha!

All of this takes up the better part of a year, and by the time the next Walpurgis Night rolls around, a convenient suicide - that staple of the extreme melodrama - has paved the way for a happy ending! And finally, you guessed it, the following spring it’s Walpurgis Night once again and circumstances are finally as the rather puritanical morality of this picture demands they ought to be!

Ingrid Bergman, whom we may remember from Casablanca, from Notorious, and From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, is somehow at once mousy and meek and radiantly beautiful as Lena! Victor Sjöström, the director who also acted, and is so well known for playing the old professor in Wild Strawberries, essays the role of the hyper-Lutheran Editor Bergstrom! And special note should be made of the bowtie-wearing freelance fellow who, in his weird and strange way, is the true hero of the picture! Ha ha!

So now, with the end of April upon us, Walpurgis Night is nearly here, and, though the picture of the same name is a little chonky and a bit on the artificially harsh side, as melodramas will be, it has the beautiful Bergman, the stern Sjöström, and other solid performances; and you know, after all, it’s more Swedish than a Swedish Fish! I give Walpurgis Night two and a half dropped pens!