The Outlaw and His Wife

Back at the beginning of the year, one of TCM's Silent Sunday Nights selections was the Swedish film The Outlaw and His Wife. It's in the public domain, so recently, I sat down to watch it and do a review here.

The setting is a rural part of Iceland in the 18th century, being based on an Icelandic legend. Kári (Victor Sjöström) shows up at the farm of Halla (Edith Erastoff), a widow who relies on itinerant labor to help run the farm. There's a question about his past, but he's strong and able to do the work, which gets him hired on. As for Halla, she's being pursued by Björn (Nils Aréhn), who is the widow's brother-in-law and the local bailiff. She's not getting any younger, and could use a man to run the farm full time.

But Halla is falling in love with Kári, which enrages Björn, partly because he's a laborer and partly because of the rumors that he's really Ejvind, a notorious outlaw who escaped a prison sentence and fled to the rural areas. Not that Halla cares, and in any case even if Kári is Ejvind, he does seem to be trying to go straight.

But the bailiff is able to find somebody who's going to be able to tell whether or not Kári is in fact Ejvind, which could mean Kári would have to go back to jail. So Kári reveals to Halla that he is in fact Ejvind, and that they should escape to the forbidding highlands which make up much of Iceland and which are unpopulated even today as you can tell if you look at a map. Apparently it was common for outlaws in those days to flee to the highlands and try to make a living off the land, hunting and fishing.

Kári and Halla are able to make a go of it for several years, even bringing up a baby. But then Kári's old friend Arnes (John Ekman) appears. He falls in love with Halla, which threatens to bring tragedy, although Arnes does come to his senses. A bigger problem comes when outside civilization shows up in the form of footprints, meaning somebody who can recognize Ejvind....

The Outlaw and His Wife is about as beautiful a movie as you can get for something that was filmed in 1917 considering the limitations of the era and the difficulty filming in the middle of nowhere. Iceland wasn't used; instead, locations in northern Sweden close to the border with Norway filled in since there's a mountain range along the border.

As for the story, it's easy enough to follow, even I think for people not used to silent movies; the acting is typical of the era. The movie is definitely more than worth a watch.

The Outlaw and His Wife doesn't seem to be on DVD, but since it was released in 1918 it's in the public domain and there are several prints available on Youtube. The print TCM ran was about 72 minutes, while some of the Youtube prints run 81; I'm not certain whether that's because of frame rate differences or what.