Hollywood's Nordic Men

Scandinavian Review, Summer 2004 by Dewey, Donald

They aren't as numerous as the women, but they have included notables from Warner Oland (Charlie Chan) and Jean Hersholt to Stellan Skarsgard and Lasse Hallström. And let's not forget the inimitable Max von Sydow.

MAX VON SYDOW ASIDE, THE Scandinavian presence in American film has usually been identified exclusively with women. Certainly, nobody would deny that Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman dominated a half-century of Hollywood's Nordic history or that, when it came to European men, the English supplied the biggest boatload of actors and the Germans the most influential directors. Even a small single nation such as Hungary produced two indelible American male screen personalities-Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre-that all the Scandinavian countries together have not been able to match. What's been up with Danish men? Did the Swedes scare off the studio moguls by showing an ability to read the fine print in their contracts? Did the prospect of all that California sun terrify the Icelanders?

One reason for the mild Scandinavian male presence is to be found in the above-cited examples of Lugosi and Lorre, both of whom made their careers as personifications of one kind of evil or another. For decades, in fact, Continental Europeans as a whole were valued mainly for their ability to contribute images of swarthy threat or sneering hostility, time out every now and then for a bumbling fool character. Hearty looking Norwegians were not the first to come to the mind of the casting director filling such a role; blue eyes alone would have bloated the budgets with the need for contact lenses. Conversely, studios on the lookout for square-jawed Aryan types as leading men could have found them far more cheaply in Idaho.

Beyond the mere physical calculations were the business ones. From the moment Denmark's Urban Gad directed Asia Nielsen in Germany in 1910 to usher in the star system, the ideal stars were womenthe more flimsily dressed and coyly behaved the better. Importing Continental actresses with the directors who had made them familiar names around the world became a common industry twofer in Hollywood. By contrast, Scandinavian actors rarely had the likes of a Gosta Berling's Saga (Garbo), Intermezzo (Bergman), or The Blue Angel (the German Marlene Dietrich) to recommend them when American studio bosses studied the latest world grosses. No knock on Swedish men, but they just hadn't stirred Madrid or Hong Kong when they stretched their legs out on the divan.

Where Scandinavian males did make something of an impression from the earliest days was in character parts that flew under marquee celebrity. The first to find work in this area was the Swede Warner Oland, who debuted in the 1912 production of The Life of John Bunyan. Brought to the United States at the age of 10, Oland eventually became most known for his role as Chinese detective Charlie Chan in a series of Grade C programmers. In 1915, Denmark's Jean Hersholt went before the cameras for the first time in The Disciple. Although he had been familiar to northern European theatergoers for some years, Hersholt had never done a film before the American silent feature. He continued supporting leads in big, small and shoelace pictures for the next 40 years, while also building up a following for his weekly radio portrayal of the kindly "Dr. Christian." The actor's many volunteer activities led to the establishment of a special Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the annual Oscar ceremonies.

Two other Scandinavians in American silents were Sweden's Henry Bergman and Denmark's Karl Dane. After playing bit parts in comedies, Bergman struck up a long-lasting friendship with Charles Chaplin, not only appearing in many of the Tramp classics, but also serving as assistant director on City Lights (1931) and Modem. Times (1936). Dane was featured in a number of World War I propaganda films, but could never make the transition to sound because of his accent. After being reduced to operating a hot dog stand, he committed suicide.

The single most important Scandinavian to work in Hollywood during the silent film era was directoractor Victor Sjöström (or Seastrom, as he was known in the U.S.). Sjöström was the most sought after director in Europe when, in 1923, he agreed to shoot the Samuel Goldwyn production of Name the Man. Although the film was as mangled in the cutting room as the legendary Greed of the same year, its critical and financial success, together with Sjöström's markedly muted protests, endeared him to Goldwyn, enabling him to write his own ticket on subsequent projects. Over the next few years, he was one of the highest paid filmmakers in Hollywood, and returned the favor with such triumphs as he Who Gets Slapped (1924) and The Tower of lies (1925), both starring Lon Chaney, and The Scarlet Letter (1926), with Lillian Gish. Another collaboration with Gish, The Wind (1928), is now considered one of the peaks of the silent era, but it was sabotaged in its initial release by Hollywood's panicky impulse to add sound, leaving critics uncomfortable and audiences unenthusiastic. That experience helped propel Sjöström back to Stockholm in 1930 for what he called a "breather." The breather lasted until his death in 1960, by which time he was most closely identified with his role as the teacher in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957).