Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Triumph of the Heart (Hjärtats triumf, Gustaf Molander, 1929)

Fan magazines from the United States have occaisionally reported that Rasunda Studios in Stockholm had recieved a vistor during 1929. There is an account that Greta Garbo, by then a star of the American silver screen purportedly with the power to avoid her own set while negotiating her salary, had visited actor Carl Brisson, an old romantic acquaintance, on the set of his film, "The Triumph of the Heart". As late as 1934, while announcing that Brisson was in Hollywood filming "Murder at the Vanities", Hollywood magazine introduced Brisson as "Garbo's first love". It having been 1934, Paramount International News was there observing publicity as Greta Garbo attended the premiere of the film, "Equipped with dark glasses and a knowledge of side entrances, she was able to elude her photographers on the way out, but reporters spotted her in the audience just after the picture started." That year, Movie Classic magazine published an article written by Carl Brisson himself entitled "There's No Romance Between Garbo and Me". The modern American reader might be unsure of Brisson's intentions when reading the Photoplay magazine of 1930 which writes, "He held out both his hands to her." in that Brisson may have been romanticlly evasive when sentimentally having said that he only knew her as the Greta that had been at the Dramatic School and that he may have only feigned surprise when being told that he had met Greta Garbo. The actress, who also had been to the set of the film to see Axel Nilsson, an old friend, had in fact known director Gustaf Molander in 1923 when she was still Greta Gustafsson of the Royal Dramatic Theater, whether or not there is conjecture as to Brisson having used innuendo refering to Garbo not having married actor Lars Hanson. Directed by Gustaf Molander, the film “Hjartats Triumf” was written by Paul Merzbach and is listed as having been photographed by J. Julius, a pseudonym used by Julius Jaenzon along with cameraman Axel Lindblom and assistant cameraman Ake Dahlqvist. Starring in the film were Edvin Adolphson and actresses Lissy Arna and Anna Lindhal. Although this was the second on screen appearance for Lindhal, she had only had a brief appearance in the film “Ingmarsarvet” during 1925 under the direction of Gustaf Molander.

Scandinavian Silent Film

Gustaf Molander