A small-town piano teacher is shocked by the arrival of her foster daughter's biological mother, whose young lover soon follows and causes further disruption.
Direction
Bergman's first film—already obsessed with faces in close-up.
Acting
Inga Landgré's Nelly: naive, cruel, and utterly magnetic.
Director
Ingmar Bergman
Inga Landgré
Nelly
Stig Olin
Jack
Marianne Löfgren
Jenny
Dagny Lind
Ingeborg Johnson
Allan Bohlin
Ulf
Ernst Eklund
Edvard
Signe Wirff
Jessie
Svea Holst
Malin
Arne Lindblad
Mayor
Julia Cæsar
Mayor's wife
Margit Andelius
Town accountant's wife at the ball
Mona Geijer-Falkner
Older woman on the train
Wiktor Andersson
Trumpet player
John Melin
Concert flute player at the ball
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Bergman later disowned this film, calling it 'a catastrophe'—but it's fascinating to see him wrestling with theatrical melodrama before finding his voice.
The 'crisis' of the title refers to a turning point in a disease—fitting for a film about small-town moral rot disguised as respectability.
SE
