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Cult Review
Senior Film Conservator
If you have a soft spot for dusty old paperbacks, small-town gossip, and the kind of heavy family drama they only made in the 1930s, then Vad veta väl männen? is a cozy little find. But look, if you need fast-paced plots or crisp digital audio, you are going to absolutely hate this creaky Swedish relic. 📺
The whole thing takes place in this gorgeous, cluttered second-hand bookshop run by Hjalmar and his daughter, Margit. It's the kind of shop where you can practically smell the decaying paper and wood polish through the screen.
Honestly, the books are almost better characters than some of the actual people. I kept ignoring the dialogue just to squint at the spines on the shelves in the background.
The plot itself is pretty simple and maybe a bit dusty too. Margit falls for a guy who isn't really right for her, and her dad has to deal with the fallout while trying to keep his quiet little world from collapsing. 💔
It has that very specific early-talkie clunkiness. If you've seen other early Scandinavian sound films like For Her Sake, you know exactly what I mean. The camera sometimes feels like it's glued to the floor because the microphone tech was so heavy back then.
But there is this one scene that really got to me. Hjalmar is just sitting at his desk, sorting through some old ledgers, and he stops to touch the corner of a damaged bible. It's a tiny, quiet gesture that feels totally real, like the actor forgot he was being filmed for a second.
Birgit Tengroth plays Margit with these massive, expressive eyes. Sometimes she stares at the camera so intensely it feels like a silent movie, which makes sense since Sweden was still transitioning away from silent epics like The Bridal Party in Hardanger around this time.
The romance side of things is... well, it's fine. The guy she falls for, played by Håkan Westergren, is a bit of a wet noodle. He has this slicked-back hair and a smile that makes you want to count your silver after he leaves the room. 🤨
The town busybodies are great, though. There's this one older lady who pops into the shop under the guise of buying a dictionary, but she's really just there to sniff around for scandal. Her neck movements are like a highly suspicious pigeon.
I did notice the music cuts out really abruptly in several scenes. Like, a dramatic violin piece will be blasting, and then bam—total dead silence except for the hiss of the optical track. It’s slightly jarring, but honestly, I kind of love those weird technical hiccups in old movies.
It's not a masterpiece, and the ending wraps up a little too neatly for my taste. But if you want to spend an hour and a half breathing in some vintage Swedish atmosphere, you could do a lot worse.
IMDb 5.3
1932
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