Night Games (1966 film)

Last updated
Night Games
Directed byMai Zetterling
Written byDavid Hughes
Mai Zetterling
Produced byGöran Lindgren
CinematographyRune Ericson
Edited byPaul Davies
Music byJan Johansson
Georg Riedel
Production
company
Sandrews
Distributed bySandrew
Rank
Gala Film Distributors
Mondial Films
Gefion Film
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Filmipaja
City Film Sandrew Metronome Distribution
Stiftelsen Svenska Filminstitutet
Stockholm
Running time
105 minutes
CountrySweden
LanguagesEnglish
Swedish

Night Games (Swedish : Nattlek) is a 1966 Swedish movie directed by Mai Zetterling and starring Ingrid Thulin. The film premiered at the 27th Venice International Film Festival where it was considered so controversial that it was shown to the jury in private. [1] The film was also the cause of former child-star Shirley Temple's resignation from the San Francisco International Film Festival. Temple denounced the film as “pornography for profit” and was against it being shown at the festival. [2]

Contents

Plot

Jan returns with his fiancée to his childhood home. While there he flashes back to his childhood, twenty years before when he lived an unfettered life watched over by a strange great-aunt and a hedonistic and often neglectful mother and father.

In particular he remembers watching his mother give birth to a stillborn child after refusing to go to the hospital in the middle of a party and his sexual obsession with his mother which included being caught by her while he was masturbating while listening to her read a bedtime story.

In the present, his relationship with his fiancée grows more strained as his past begins to affect the way he acts in the present.

Cast

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References

  1. Crowther, Bosley. "The Spy With a Cold Nose (1966) Screen: 'Night Games' on View at Festival Theater:Mai Zetterling's Movie a Deliberate Shocker". The New York Times . Retrieved 22 May 2015.
  2. "Shirley Temple - obituary" . Retrieved 22 May 2015.