Unrivaled among silent-film adaptations of Charles Dickens novels are the four epic Danish features for Nordisk Films by its leading director, A.W. Sandberg: Our Mutual Friend (1921), Great Expectations (1922), David Copperfield (1922), and Little Dorrit (1923). The most visually spectacular is Our Mutual Friend, from Dickens’s last completed novel (1864-65), combining a comic satire about greed with a dark mystery that opens as a corpse floats in the Thames. Shot in 1918—the delayed release apparently due to disputes between Sandberg and Nordisk over the film’s ambition and length—its two parts survive only with significant missing footage in the second half, but it still runs almost two-and-a-half hours. Available for the first time with English subtitles that draw on Dickens’s phrasing and with new text screens to fill in missing story information, the forgotten film proves to be one of the great silent literary adaptations.
Director: A.W. Sandberg. AKA Our Mutual Friend
Writers: Laurids Skands & A.W. Sandberg (screenplay), Charles Dickens (novel).
Stars: Aage Fønns, Alfred Møller, Kate Risse, Peter Malberg, Karen Kaspersen, Egill Rostrup, Peter Fjelstrup, Svend Kornbeck, Peter Nielsen, Bertel Krause, Charles Wilken, Jonna Neiiendam, Carl Madsen, Kai Kilian.
Cinematographer: Einer Olsen.
⇓ DOWNLOAD OPTIONS ⇓
ENCODE:
MP4 | 2.70 GB | 920×720 | 59.940 FPS | 2500 kb/s
Language: Silent | Intertitles: Danish | Subtitles: English
⇒ DL via 1FICHIER
(DO NOT USE WITHOUT ADBLOCKER)
SOURCE FILE:
MKV | 8.01 GB | 1920×1080 | 59.940 FPS | 7840 kb/s
Language: Silent | Intertitles: Danish | Subtitles: English
⇒ DL via 1FICHIER
(DO NOT USE WITHOUT ADBLOCKER)
Big, big thanks to my friend and long time rarefilmm supporter Scott Simmon for sending me a copy of this Danish silent film which not only he personally subtitled to English but also created several text screens providing information about the story for those parts where the film footage couldn’t be found. Stellar work, Scott, thank you for this!
Still exellent after all these years. Merci mille Mahalo
Thank you so much for this movie!!!
Are any of the others in this series available?
Hi John H.:
To answer your question about other films in this Danish series of 4 silent Dickens films, yes, all four survive, amazingly enough. The only other one that currently has English subtitles is “LIttle Dorrit” (1923) and you can stream (and download) it via the Danish Film Institute. (Just search “Danish Silent Film’ which takes you to their “stumfilm” site. ) The other two are also available there, but without subtitles.
Happy hunting,
Scott S.