The Aviator’s Generosity (1911) A Silent Film Review

A reporter’s wife pursues a French aviator and extramarital canoodling ensues. The reporter suspects the truth and begins to dream of murder. A Danish melodrama starring the wildly popular Valdemar Psilander.

Home Media Availability: Stream courtesy of the Danish Film Institute.

Come Josephine In My Flying Machine

Danish star Asta Nielsen’s international fame is still the stuff of legends in film circles but her contemporary countryman Valdemar Psilander has been lost to time. His mysterious death in 1917 likely contributed to his obscurity: he passed while film celebrity was still being invented and was gone too early to secure his own legacy.

A similar fate befell comedy superstar John Bunny, who passed in 1915 from an illness, and Harold Lockwood, a heartthrob who fell victim to the influenza epidemic in 1918. All three men were mourned and declared immortal and then the twenties roared, memories faded, films rotted and here we are.

The Danish Film Institute has been attempting to revive Psilander with home media and streaming releases of his films and since I very much support the celebration of the first generation of movie stars, I was pleased to dive in.

In The Aviator’s Generosity, Psilander does not play the title character but is instead the recipient. He is Warren, a reporter with an attractive wife (Else Frölich). Since the character is not named in the titles, I will refer to her as Else. Warren is instructed to interview the daring French pilot, Flarion (Einar Zangenberg), and Else is eager to accompany him.

It soon becomes clear why. Without a moment’s hesitation, Else starts flirting with Flarion behind her husband’s back. The pilot is asked back to the couple’s home for a meal and things escalate to groping and kissing while Warren is away from the table.

Now, you might be wondering if Warren is blind not to see such outrageous behavior under his very nose. And the answer is that he is not but he is also helped by the fact that Else and Flarion are not very bright. Flarion had cut his thumb during lunch, so some of his pawing has left prints on Else’s blouse. As Warren helps his wife undress, he sees them and, well, it doesn’t take a crack journalist long to figure out that the only guy with the cut thumb might have also been the mystery groper. She tries to laugh off his discovery but knows he suspects.

Warren doesn’t push the matter and instead pretends to have been called away for work. Else, of course, dashes off to see Flarion, telling him what her husband has discovered. Warren sees them and overhears them and decides to take action. He steals into the hangar and cuts the cable to the rudder of Flarion’s airplane. Meanwhile, it is Flarion’s turn to make a discovery and he sees what Warren is up to. He chilled to realize that is the target of attempted murder.

The next day, Else flies with Flarion and Warren is inconsolable with guilt and worry. Of course, Flarion has taken the opportunity to repair his rudder cable and the flight goes smoothly but at the end, he hands his passenger a Dear Else letter warning her that her husband loves her too much. He also sends a letter and the cut cable to Warren, saying that he felt the punishment was too severe for the crime but he has taught him a lesson. Else and Warren are reunited. Happy ending?

Director August Blom was in the second year of his career and, while far less technically advanced, this picture has several parallels to his later production, The Bride of Death (1912). Both films feature a love triangle between a woman and two men. In The Bride of Death, the bride is pitched and tossed about by the aggressive manipulation of both men. In The Aviator’s Generosity, Else is very much the aggressor and an unhesitating adulteress but, in the end, her character has little agency and is given the boot by her spooked lover. Violent mind games also abound in both films, though nobody actually follows through in The Aviator’s Generosity.

(I do not know enough about Danish attitudes toward women smoking to comment in this instance but if this were an American or German movie of the same period, Else’s constant smoking would absolutely have been a symbol of her wild ways. Male smoking, on the other hand, was invisible so long as they stuck to cigarettes and pipes in American fare, while boorishness could be symbolized by cigars if they were smoked in front of women without permission or the ashes were not cared for properly.)

Silent films ask much of their audience in terms of imagination and I think it’s appropriate to read between the lines here. I don’t think Flarion was Else’s first affair partner, she showed no hesitation in pursuing him, and I don’t think he was her last, she was too pouty about being dumped. Given that Warren’s immediate response is murder—can we really say he learned his lesson?— I think we can read this film as a prologue to a tragedy.

Or you can just think that everyone learned their lessons and a marriage was saved thanks to the generosity of Flarion. It’s up to you but I think my version is more fun.

As mentioned above, this is a more technically simple film than Blom’s later work with much of the action captured by medium shots and the scenes brightly lit without too much moodiness. (Though there is one very nice Dutch angle when Warren calls to see if his wife is really flying with Flarion.) Most of the visual flair is tied up in shots of Flarion’s airplane, in the hangar, on the landing field and in flight.

By the way, the more modern open cockpit design (think a boxier version of the Snoopy airplane) had been invented prior to 1911 but there were still competing models in flight. Flarion’s airplane is a particularly precarious design, basically a lawn chair bolted to a thin metal frame held together with wires. Airplanes of this era look mad but they were no madder than the people who actually took flight in them. No wonder the news media went wild for them. (Airships too, as we learned in last week’s review of A Twentieth Century Tramp.)

But now we have the most important question of all: how was Psilander? Well, I have to admit that if I were an actor, I would probably have preferred the role of Flarion as his character has the more complicated and interesting reactions. However, Psilander does well in his part as Warren, all murder and regrets, and keeps his performance tight by the standards of the era. That being said, I don’t see that special spark of stardom.

And you know what that means? I will have to watch more Psilander films! I like to understand why particular stars were so beloved and appealing and, separated as we are by centuries and cultures, the message doesn’t always come through clearly the first time. It took five or six films before I fully “got” Norma Talmadge, after all.

(Temptations of the Great City, released the same year as The Aviator’s Generosity, was his breakthrough and an obvious choice for follow-up viewing.)

Else Frölich is the real MVP of the picture, perhaps playing her character more lasciviously than the writers intended. Her character bites her lip suggestively as she reads Flarion’s name for the first time and spends much of the picture barely able to contain her eagerness to stomp all over her marriage vows. No easy accomplishment to get across with seven layers of clothing and a camera stuck in medium shots.

The Aviator’s Generosity is well-made, if not quite as extravagant as other Danish fare from the same era and team. As with many Danish pictures, it benefits from being watched with a slightly twisted mind and I think I enjoyed the speculation as much as what I viewed onscreen.

Where can I see it?

Stream courtesy of the Danish Film Institute with German title cards and Danish subtitles. However, the drama is easy enough to follow even if you do not speak those languages.

☙❦❧

Like what you’re reading? Please consider sponsoring me on Patreon. All patrons will get early previews of upcoming features, exclusive polls and other goodies.

Disclosure: Some links included in this post may be affiliate links to products sold by Amazon and as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.