Sommarnattens Leende / Smiles of a Summer Night (1955 Ingmar Bergman & scr)

Are you sure this is the same Ingmar Bergman who made Cries and Whispers? It can't be. This is a delightful sex comedy, clearly the inspiration for A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy. Or like an Oscar Wilde.

Really well played too. A man (Gunnar Bjornstrand) is married to a much younger wife (Ulla Jacobssen) - they haven't consummated the marriage. They live with his son from his former marriage, Bjorn Bjelfvenstam. The man's ex lover, actress Eva Dahlbeck, comes into town. Her lover now is soldier Jarl Kulle, his wife Margit Carlqvist. Harriet Andersson is a randy maid, Ake Fridell a lusty servant and Naima Wifstrand the mother, who stages a get-together at her country place on the midsummer night in which everything comes together.

Sending the husband home in a nightshirt is a funny moment, reminiscent of Lubitsch. Similarly the  duel between Bjornstrand and Kulle.

It's really delightful. Shot by Gunnar Fischer. Made the year before The Seventh Seal - interesting prefiguring of that film is the clock which displays a Knight and Death amongst its characters.

Ulla Jacobssen and Margit Carlqvist

Gunnar Bjornstrand and Eva Dahlbeck

Something about this shot makes me think of A Canterbury Tale