Arquivo

In puritanical Boston, in 1645, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale falls in love with young Hester Prynne. He is quite prepared to marry her, but she is already married to a man a good deal older than she is, who has been away from the country for a long time. Dimmesdale also travels abroad and is away for a number of months. He returns to find that Hester has given birth to a son, his son, and that she refuses to name the father of the child, withstanding pressure from her husband who has by then, himself returned to Boston. By force of the severe morals of the time, she is obliged to wear a letter “A” embroidered on her clothes, as a public admission of adultery. In the adaptation of the famous novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, star Lillian Gish insisted on what was her right by contract, namely, to choose the director for the film and the actor she was to act with (Lars Hanson). The film was a vast success both in the U.S. and in Sweden.