Cinema
Nummisuutarit
Erkki Karu · 1923
Synopsis
An old corporal has promised five hundred riksdalers to whichever of the village's two young people, Esko or Jaana, marries first. Esko, son of the cobbler Topias, has grown up simple and guileless; his mother Martta wants him to marry before Jaana so as to receive the inheritance. She therefore sends him with the matchmaker Mikko Vilkastus to ask for Kreeta's hand, in another village, where they arrive on the very day Kreeta marries the cooper Jaakko.
Context
The film adapts Aleksis Kivi's comedy of 1864, from a screenplay by Artturi Järviluoma. It was shot at the Suomi-Filmi studio on Vironkatu in Helsinki, and on location in the villages of Pilpala and Hunsala, in Loppi; Axel Slangus, of the Swedish Theatre, plays Esko. A gala preview took place at the National Theatre on 11 November 1923, the date its tour of the country began. It is the first of the three adaptations of the play, before those of 1938 and 1957.
Who it is for
A silent film; it helps to know that the comedy it is based on is one of the most frequently staged plays in Finnish theatre, and that the audience of 1923 knew its lines.
Prizes and reception
A good popular success in 1923, though smaller than that of Karu's other film that year, the high point of his career as a director.