This is a melodrama that would have suited Douglas Sirk. Mikael Bourg serves 17 years in French west Africa as an engineer building roads and bridges for the French army but has recurrent severe spells of malaria, that force him to return home. At home he has his son Ludvig (expertly played by Hasse Ekman), a happy-go-lucky careless dandy, but in his company he finds the beautiful and tender Aino Taube. It does not develop into any jealousy drama, but the son is perfectly happy with his father being entirely taken care of by Aino Taube. But the problem is that Mikael Bourg cannot live without working and cannot find work, since he is over 40. The pain of the situation is that he has been so long abroad (17 years) that the restricted Sweden has no regard for such merits and therefore discard him as being of no use, as he is simply over-qualified - a common problem in Sweden. He then has no other choice but to return to his engineering in French Africa with the inevitable malaria waiting to take his life.
It is not comparable with Anders Henrikson's sensational success of the year before, "Etc brott", but rather a melodramatic shadow of it, although the acting is good, especially by Adolphson and Ekman and also Aino Taube and Sigurd Wallén as the grumpy doctor, who is always wholesomely angry. It is not without interest, the story is good, Douglas Sirk would have enjoyed it, but it is totally dwarfed by Henrikson's earlier film "Ett brott".
It is not comparable with Anders Henrikson's sensational success of the year before, "Etc brott", but rather a melodramatic shadow of it, although the acting is good, especially by Adolphson and Ekman and also Aino Taube and Sigurd Wallén as the grumpy doctor, who is always wholesomely angry. It is not without interest, the story is good, Douglas Sirk would have enjoyed it, but it is totally dwarfed by Henrikson's earlier film "Ett brott".
