Bergman and War: Films Recall the Past

Ingrid Bergman’s earliest films, the original “Thin Red Line” and an Oscar-winning World War II documentary are the latest vintage video releases.

New from Fox Lorber is the “World Class Cinema” collection of six Swedish melodramas that star a young Bergman ($20 to $30 each; $120 for the set). Just two years out of high school, she made her film debut in 1935 and quickly established herself as one of Sweden’s top movie talents.

Her big breakthrough was 1936’s “Intermezzo.” Bergman absolutely glows in this four-hankie weepie as a beautiful pianist who is hired to give lessons to the young daughter of a world-famous concert violinist (Gosta Ekman).There’s an immediate attraction between the violinist and the much younger teacher. He ends up leaving his family, and the two go on an extended European concert tour and vacation. Though their relationship seems idyllic, Bergman realizes that she is just an “intermezzo” in his life and leaves him so he can return to the arms of his family. It’s pure hokum but juicy entertainment.

Producer David O. Selznick saw this movie and brought Bergman to America, where she made her American film debut in the 1939 remake of “Intermezzo,” which starred Leslie Howard as the violinist.

In another early film, 1935’s “Walpurgis Night,” Bergman plays a young secretary who falls in love with her handsome boss, who is having marital problems because his snobbish wife doesn’t want to have children. When his wife discovers that she is pregnant, she has an abortion and becomes involved in a blackmail plot. The movie is overheated and undistinguished, but Bergman is radiant in her supporting role.

The actress is the whole show in 1938’s “June Night.” She plays a beautiful, rebellious woman who is shot by her lover when he learns she is going to leave him. A scandal in her small hometown ensues, and she winds up moving to Stockholm, where she meets new friends and a handsome young doctor.

“Dollar,” also from 1938, is a minor bedroom farce in which three couples have a rather wild weekend at a ski resort. Bergman makes the most of her weakly written role.

Rounding out the collection are 1937’s “A Woman’s Face,” in which Bergman plays a disfigured woman who is transformed into a beauty after surgery (it was remade in America in 1941 with Joan Crawford), and 1938’s drama “Only One Night.”

Terrence Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’ World War II novel, “The Thin Red Line,” is nominated for seven Oscars, including best picture. But this big-budget all-star extravaganza isn’t the first screen adaptation of the book about American troops attempting to drive back the Japanese at Guadalcanal.

Back in 1964, Jack Warden and Keir Dullea starred in a serviceable but uninvolving black-and-white film, which has just been released on video and DVD by Simitar Entertainment ($10 each). Warden gives a good, gruff performance as a hardened sergeant, but Dullea overdoes his crazy bit as a private who loses his mind. The best thing about the movie is that it’s an hour shorter than Malick’s version.

Far more compelling for World War II buffs is “Desert Victory,” set for release Tuesday from Kino on Video ($20).

This Oscar-winning 1943 documentary gives viewers a stark up-close-and-personal chronicle of the dramatic and violent Allied victory in North Africa over Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s forces. The footage was taken by 62 members of the Army Film and Photography Unit, as well as from captured German film. During the campaign, though, four cinematographers were killed, six were wounded and seven were captured.

Also included on the tape is the 1943 documentary short “Cameramen at War,” which celebrates the achievements of documentary filmmakers during the war. To order “Desert Victory,” call (800) 562-3330.