dir:  Carl Th. Dreyer
pro: Sophus Madsen, Sophus Madsen Film
sc Carl Th. Dreyer, Palle Rosenkrantz
ph: George Schnéevoigt
cast: Peter Jerndorff, Clara Pontoppidan, Svend Methling, Hakon Ahnfelt-Rønne
dis Dansk Kulturfilm (DFI)

“Once Upon a Time”, adapted from a national-romantic play by the Danish writer Holger Drachmann, is set in a fairytale past. The jolly old king of the rococo land Illyria lets his beautiful, but capricious, daughter have her way in all things. She not only rejects every suitor who comes to call, she also has them executed. Only the Prince of Denmark, happening by on his travels with his faithful sidekick Kaspar Røghat, has such a way with words that the princess lets him live, even while as she spurns him, too. Back home in the woods of Denmark, the prince meets a mysterious old man who gives him a magic kettle. Disguised as a pauper, the prince tricks the princess into letting him into her bedroom. Alerted by Røghat, the king comes charging in and banishes his daughter. She is now forced to live with the pauper in his cabin deep in the woods… The film was thought lost for many years. An incomplete print was found in the 1960s sadly missing the entire last quarter of the film and several other scenes.

Der var engang / Once Upon a Time (DK) 1922 b&w 75 min.

Film description thanks to www.carlthdreyer.dk.