Stolen Spring

Most danes have read " Det forsømte forår" ( The neglected spring) and the movie portrays almost all the characters as you imagine them when you read the novel. Only two characters is written together as one person. This excellent flick about a group of Copenhagen school boys in the 1950's is one of my favorite danish flicks. Frits Helmuth, who plays an most likely gay upper- secondary teacher, Mr. Blomme, is wonderful playing the sadistic pedagogue who knows how to break the boys spirits, mocking the overweight, Thygesen, and tormenting the acne ridden, Edvard Ellerstrøm, who once was his favorite pupil. The other teachers are not any better with, Aben ( The monkey) who in desperation rips out the electric socket from the wall. The sadistic gym teacher, Ejby, who loves to put the boys in a circle for a round of battle royal with only the last man standing. Mr. Blomme is poisend by one of the pupils and dies in the arms of a police officer while citing " Agnosco fortunam Cartaginis (I acknowledge the fortune of Carthage). During a school reunion many years later the culprit admits the killing, but since everybody is totally drunk, nobody really cares or believe him as one of the now elderly fellow states: " We all killed, Blomme".