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May 14, 2006

They Caught the Ferry

wecaughtferry.jpg

De nåede færgen
Carl Theodor Dreyer - 1948
Image Entertainment Region 1 DVD

In the ten years between Two People and Ordet, Carl Theodor Dreyer made a driver's safety film. A guy with his girlfriend go very fast through Denmark from one port to another on his motorcycle. On the way, the guy gets distracted and runs into a tree. This short film is based on a story by a Nobel Prize winning author. Dreyer made the film for the Danish government which for some unknown reason had no established speed limits on public roads. And while Dreyer scholars may try to convince me that this is the greatest driver's safety movie every made, it is still, a commissioned project and a public service message.

I have to wonder if Carl Theodor Dreyer followed the Hollywood careers of former collaborators Rudolph Mate, Karl Freund or Walter Slezak. Throughout the eleven minutes of They Caught the Ferry I felt that Dreyer could have had a Hollywood career if he really wanted one. He might not have made the ambitious ilms he wanted to, but he might not have gone ten years between films either. Based on the evidence of We Caught the Ferry or any of his other films, had Carl Theodor Dreyer gone to Hollywood, would he have made one of the following films? Check the titles below, and write your answers in the comments section.

Posted by Peter Nellhaus at May 14, 2006 05:46 PM