When a starving student falls in love with an heiress, her social climbing father is quick to object and send him packing. Undeterred, the student decides that the matter will be solved in the modern way: form a company to underwrite his marriage.
Home Media Availability: Stream courtesy of the Danish Film Institute.
The Business of Love
It’s the oldest story in the romantic comedy book: poor boy meets rich girl and has to go to great lengths to win over her snobby family. The Danish mini-feature Carl Alstrup’s Love Ltd. takes this very classic setup and finds a fresh approach.
To back up a little, Carl Alstrup was a popular star of stage and screen, thus the “name above the title, his name is the title” for this film, and he specialized in comedy. Director Lau Lauritzen, Sr. was in the second year of his career as a director and well on his way to a long career in comedy. (I quite enjoyed his 1921 film Oh! Uncle!) So, this picture was already primed for success on the humor front.
Without further ado, the plot: Jean (Alstrup) is a French student with plenty of ambition and no cash. He makes a pass at pretty Madeleine (Stella Lind) and follows her home. Madeleine likes what she sees and gives Jean a red-hot handshake before going inside.
That handshake goes straight to Jean’s heart and, since his friends tease him, he makes a bet that he will marry Madeleine within six months. To that end he decides that he will address her father for permission to court her then and there. Madeleine is delighted when she hears he has made a move but her wealthy father, Chanteloup (Bertel Krause), is appalled. This penniless nobody asking about his daughter, without a proper necktie even? The very idea! Jean is quickly thrown out.
Will this stop true love? It will not! Jean has a plan. He calls for a meeting of merchants and other professionals to whom he owes money in order make his pitch: if they will kit him out in a manner suitable for the lover of Chantaloup’s daughter, he will pay them back everything with interest once he is married. The response is enthusiastic and they quickly buy shares in Jean’s company. Now they just need one big backer to finance the thing, so Jean takes out a rather remarkable advertisement in the newspaper in order to find one.
Obviously, the concept of this film could come off as a bit squicky but Love Ltd. solves that narrative pickle with a brilliant stroke: Madeleine’s maid is connected to the corporation and tells her what is going on. Advertisement in hand, Madeleine immediately calls for her business manager. If Jean is serious enough to go to these lengths, she’s secretly going to be his investor.
This turns the plot on its head and gives Madeleine equal footing in the relationship. She’s a wealthy woman and if Jean needs money to buy her father’s approval, she’ll be the one to provide it!
With the investment money, Jean is kitted out in style and rushes to meet Chantaloup once again while the gleeful Madeleine eavesdrops. At first, it seems that Jean has won him over but it was all a ruse, Chantaloup was sarcastically leading him on and has him thrown out once again. Madeleine is furious—she wants her student, darn it! Jean, meanwhile, has another plan.
A member of the corporation finds a newspaper advertisement of a peculiar nature: an aristocratic woman, Baroness Elvira de Compiegue (Olga Svendsen) needs a husband for one day only in order to earn an inheritance. Once the day is over, the marriage will end but the husband can keep the title as payment. Ah ha! Chantaloup may be able to reject Jean the student but would he be as likely to throw out the Baron de Compiegue?
The Baroness is a living John Tenniel illustration complete with putty nose and is thrilled by her future husband, so she efficiently summons both a clergyman for the marrying and a notary for the divorcing. But in between, it turns out that the Baroness is something of a sex pest and expects a wedding night. Poor Jean is forced to run for his life inside a locked bedroom before arming himself with a rifle and an antique plate helmet.
Morning comes at last, the notary delivers both the divorce and the registration of Jean as a baron and then finds himself the object of the Baroness’s affections when the newly-free divorce flees. Title in hand, Jean is ready to make his third attempt to win Madeleine’s hand. Will her social climbing father take the bait? See Carl Alstrup’s Love Limited to find out!
Well, that was cute! I enjoy romantic comedies, even when I can predict every move the plot will make, provided that the cast and director get into the spirit of the thing. Alstrup is, admittedly, pushing forty and not entirely believable as a student but I enjoyed his style of acting. He conveys the slightly exaggerated reactions that a zany story of this kind requires but doesn’t fall into mugging. I can see why he was so popular.
Stella Lind is also appealing as the leading lady of the picture, wearing her heart on her sleeve and delighted to go along with whatever madcap scheme her lover comes up with. She reminds me of Constance Talmadge. Olga Svendsen as the Baroness pulls things in a more grotesque direction but it works since it’s a natural progression of the eccentricity that has already occurred.
Director Lauritzen, in his signature style, constructs a gleefully surreal world of bizarre newspaper advertisements and merry eccentrics. It’s all very jovial and good-natured, exactly the kind of mood I enjoy and expect from Danish comedy.
I mentioned that I enjoy a well-made rom-com even if it is predictable but this one is not. It has the bones of a romantic comedy but it veers into bedroom farce territory with a few lashings of proto-screwball.
It also runs just 44 minutes in its current form; the three- and four-reel feature is such a nice-but-neglected runtime. Five reels (about an hour, give or take) was considered the minimum for a feature during the silent era and nine reels (90 to 110 minutes) is the standard today but we are currently in a 1960s redux with three-hour-plus films regularly topping the box office. Super long movies are sometimes warranted but other times, they feel like a 90-minute picture in a three-hour sack.
As a result, this little 44-minute snack is a refreshing treat in modern context. It has exactly enough plot to fill those 44 minutes, no more and no less. We get a full story, we are amused, the plot speeds along at a good clip and we are satisfied in the end. What more could we ask for?
Carl Alstrup’s Love Limited is one of those films where, once I finished it, I just had to stop and note how much I enjoyed it. It’s not out to set the world on fire and change the course of cinema, it’s just designed to entertain us for a little while and it succeeds beautifully.
Where can I see it?
Stream it online courtesy of the Danish Film Institute. The film has Dutch titles and Danish subtitles. No English subs yet.
☙❦❧
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