Denmark: Nordisk and Ole Olsen

Denmark: Nordisk and Ole Olsen

Denmark: Nordisk and Ole Olsen
1) That a small country like Denmark became a significant player in world cinema
     was largely due to entrepreneur Ole Olsen.
2) He had been an exhibitor, initially using a peepshow machine and later running one
   of the first movie theaters in Copenhagen.
3) In 1906, he formed a production company, Nordisk, and immediately began       
    opening distribution offices abroad.
4) Nordisk’s breakthrough came in 1907 with Lion Hunt, a fiction film about a safari.
5) Because two lions were actually shot during the production, the film was banned in
    Denmark, but the publicity generated huge sales abroad.
6) The company’s New York branch, established in 1908, sold Nordisk films under the
   brand name Great Northern.
7) In the same year, Olsen completed the first of four glass studios for indoor production.

Lion Hunt (Viggo Larsen, 1907)

Nordisk films

1) quickly established an international reputation for excellent acting and production
    values.
2) Nordisk specialized in crime thrillers and somewhat sensationalistic melodramas,
    including “white-slave” (prostitution) stories.
3) Olsen had a circus set permanently installed, and some of the firm’s major films
    centered on circus life, such as
    a) The Four Devils (1911, Robert Dinesen and Alfred Lind) and
    b) The Great Circus Catastrophe (Eduard Schnedler-Sørensen, 1912).

The Four Devils (1911, Robert Dinesen and Alfred Lind)

The Great Circus Catastrophe (Eduard Schnedler-Sørensen, 1912)
Film Clip