The Outlaw and His Wife (1918), Starring and Directed by Victor Sjöström (Seastrom), “the undisputed father of Swedish film”; See It Complete, for Free, and Without Commercial Interruption at WEJB/NSU!

By Nicholas Stix

In 1956, Swedish director-screenwriter Ingemar Bergman paid the ultimate homage to his landsmann, actor-director Victor Sjöström (Seastrom) (1879-1960), whom Jon C. Hopwood would call “the undisputed father of Swedish film.” He made the old man, 77, the star of Bergman’s (1918-2007) own masterpiece, Wild Strawberries (1957).

Wild Strawberries tells the story of a widowed professor and doctor, who has been tapped to receive a lifetime achievement award—the kind you give to a great figure who isn’t expected to live much longer—and who spends an entire day, driving to Stockholm (I think), the capital city, where the university is, where he will be honored.

The night before the trip, the professor has a nightmare, in which he sees himself dead in a coffin, and the trip becomes a journey of the soul.

Jon C. Hopwood: “He was the idol of director Ingmar Bergman, and Bergman wrote Wild Strawberries (1957) with Sjöström in mind for the lead role. Bergman once said that if Sjöström had not agreed to do the film, he would not have made it at all.”

Like the professor in Wild Strawberries, when Sjöström lost his Edith, he never remarried.

The Outlaw and His Wife stars Sjöström and his then-offscreen lover and future wife and mother of two of his children, Edith Erastoff (1887-1945).


The Outlaw and His Wife




The WEJB/NSU Theater, 1902-1981:

Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1902);

The Great Train Robbery (1903);

C.B. DeMille’s The Squaw Man (1914);

D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915);

D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Through the Ages (1916);

Harry Carey and John “Jack” Ford’s Straight Shooting (1917), the First Feature-Length, “Cheyenne Harry” Western;

Charlie Chaplin’s Shoulder Arms (1918);

Starring “Jack”: See the 1920 Silent Picture Classic of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde;

Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920);

Buster Keaton’s One Week (1920);

D. W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920);

F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1921);

The Kid (1921), Charlie Chaplin’s First Feature as Director;

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou’s First Pictures Featuring the Evil Genius, Dr. Mabuse: Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, Teil I (Dr. Mabuse, the Player, Part I); and

Dr. Mabuse, Teil II: Inferno (Dr. Mabuse, Inferno, Part II, both 1922, released one month apart) with English subtitles;

James Cruze’s The Covered Wagon (1923);

John Ford’s The Iron Horse (1924);

Charlie, in The Gold Rush (1925);

Lon Chaney, in The Phantom of the Opera (1925);

King Vidor, Laurence Stallings, and Harry Behn’s The Big Parade (1925), Starring Gilbert and Adore!

Buster Keaton’s The General (1926);

John Ford’s 1926 Western, 3 Bad Men;

When a Man Loves (1927), Starring “Jack” and Dolores Costello;

Josef von Sternberg and Ben Hecht’s Underworld (1927), the First American Gangster Picture;

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger (1927);

“Wild Bill” Wellman’s Restored, Classic Silent Picture, Wings (1927), One of the First Two Best Picture Oscar Winners;

F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, One of the First Two Best Picture Oscar Winners);

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou’s Dystopian Science Fiction Epic, Metropolis (1927), the Greatest S/F Picture Ever, Plus Its Soundtrack Suite;

Frank Borzage and Austin Strong’s Seventh Heaven (1927);

Samson Raphaelson, Alfred A. Cohn, Jack Jarmuth and Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer (1927), the First-Ever Talkie, Starring Al Jolson, by Warner Brothers;

St. Louis Blues (talkie, short, 1929);

Fritz Lang & Thea von Harbou’s First Talkie: M: Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (1931) (M: A City Searches for a Murderer);

Paul Robeson in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones (talkie, 1933);

The Man Who Knew too Much (1934): The Original Version of the Early Hitchcock Classic;

John Ford’s Judge Priest (1934), Starring Will Rogers, with Hattie McDaniel;

Kate Hepburn in the Super Chief’s Quality Street (1937);

Cary Grant and Roz Russell in Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, and Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday (1940);

Zero’s Since You Went Away (1944);

William Dieterle’s A Portrait of Jennie (1948);

Jules Dassin, Albert Malz, and Malvin Wald’s The Naked City (1948), Plus Music; and

Paul Newman, in Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981).