Nordisk Film Kompagni

1911 film by August Blom

Georg Jacoby’s Jokeren is a light-hearted entertainment picture set during the carnival in Nice, a romantic comedy with a touch of melodrama. A young artist, fatally injured in a car accident, foolishly entrusts a batch of compromising love letters to Borwick, a crooked and unscrupulous lawyer, instructing him to destroy them. Instead, Borwick proceeds to blackmail the woman who sent the letters, Lady Cecilie Powder, married to the straight-arrow Sir Herbert Powder. Lady Cecilie gets help from her spunky younger sister Gill. In turn, she draws in Peter Carstairs, a debonair adventurer known to all as “the Joker” – the card that trumps all others. When the Joker repeatedly foils Borwick’s schemes, the crooked lawyer ups the ante, trying to incriminate his adversary Carstairs and expanding his demands to include marriage to Gill. But as the characters converge at yet another lavish carnival celebration party, it becomes clear that one card does indeed trump all the others: the Joker!

A female ‘gypsy’ – in the parlance of the time – must choose between helping her own camp or a kidnapped girl. The woman once fell in love with the local count. However, without hesitation, the count left her heartbroken for a rich aristocratic girl who seduced him. Years later, the count refuses to pay alms to the gypsy camp, so a couple of desperate gypsies decide to kidnap his five-year-old daughter. The scorned woman recognises her old beloved count in the child’s face and decides to do the right thing. (Stumfilm.dk)

Three bachelors vow to ban women from their fraternity – and immediately break their promise when Nelly needs help. Nelly’s father, the champion boxer Bømann, doesn’t approve of her engagement to her boyfriend Tobby. She runs away from home in protest and seeks refuge with the three bachelors. After Bømann tracks down Nelly’s hiding place, it’s all down to a matter of how much of a beating the three unlikely rescuers can take before Tobby comes to the rescue. (Stumfilm.dk)

A past lover ignites a fiery gambling addiction within the reckless Prince Spinarosa. The old lover, Asta Leonhard, ensures that the prince acquires a royal gambling debt. Princess Spinarosa is a famous dancer in her own right and graciously offers her husband a piece of jewellery to cover his debt. One day she sees Asta wearing that very same piece of jewellery. Shattered by humiliation, the Princess realises that she must walk away from the prince and everything she knows. (Stumfilm.dk)

The film gives a strong view of the everyday life of Icelanders when the film is shot, but that year was a record year for the export of herring products and herring fishing and herring salting therefore cover a large part of the film.