This blogpost is based on the introduction I gave to a screening of this film in the BFI Southbank season that I curated, In the Eyes of a Silent Star: The Films of Asta Nielsen. The season continues until 16 March and there are many great films yet to see.

Asta Nielsen was one of the first truly international film stars, mobbed by crowds when she made personal appearances and beloved by audiences all over the world. Was she the first? You might call it a tie between her and the French comedian Max Linder, who made his name with a dapper, high-class comic character in a dress suit. When they burst on to the scene, Charlie Chaplin was four years away from making his debut. Although acclaimed as a tragedienne, the melancholic counterpart to Linder’s slapstick sensation, Nielsen proved often that she could do funny, too. And in tails as well.

In fact she had needed a little encouragement to play humorous scenes at drama school. “It all went wrong when I had to try my hand at comedy,” she wrote in her memoir. “Every type of humour was utterly foreign to me.” But in many ways the seriousness and commitment she brought to drama was her secret weapon as a comedienne. And as Robert C. Allen has written, perhaps the confidence boost of global stardom gave her the freedom to be silly.