This commercial has all the characteristics of a newsreel report covering a real event; the advertising message (for Freia/Marabou chocolate) is slipped into the story.
In June 1924 Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks made a trip to the Scandinavian countries. After visiting Copenhagen, they continued to Stockholm and Oslo (Kristiania), where this film was shot. The couple is guided around Stockholm and Oslo, meeting the crowds in the streets. The commercial aspect is limited and cleverly worked into the story, not as specific products but for the chocolate brands Freia (Norway) and its Swedish sister company Marabou. While the other Freia and Marabou commercials in our programme, Konstabelens drøm (1922) and Carolus Rex (1923), are two entirely separate productions, this is obviously a Norwegian production, with credits for the filmmaker Ottar Gladtvet (1890-1962).
Even though this is clearly a commercial in its present editing, it is possible the material could also have been screened as a true actuality film. Fairbanks and Pickford were on a promotional tour of Europe. Several newspaper ads exist for tickets for screenings of films showing their arrival the very same day. On the other hand, Gladtvet was surely not the only photographer covering the film stars’ visit. We know of at least one other company making an actuality film about their arrival in Stockholm, and according to the Oslo newspapers there were several film cameramen present outside the Grand Hotel of the Norwegian capital (a photographer and his camera are also glimpsed at the foot of the stairs in the footage of the American minister’s reception).
In the days following the celebrity visit, several newspapers contained ads for screenings. The footage is described in different words: “Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Visit in Scandinavia”, “Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in Kristiania, Copenhagen and Stockholm”. Whether they all refer to the same footage is difficult to confirm. The same afternoon that Pickford and Fairbanks arrived in Oslo, scenes of their arrival were part of the programme at a (sold-out) matinee screening of Fairbanks’ adventure film Robin Hood, attended by the starry couple at the Circus Verdensteater.
According to Gladtvet’s own words (published posthumously in 1999 in the book Filmeventyret begynner – av og om filmpioneren Ottar Gladtvet, ed. Jan Anders Diesen) his intention was to make a commercial. The majority of the footage seems to be a true actuality film, but there are some scenes that clearly reveal that it was originally planned as a commercial. The most obvious is of course the scene at the border between Sweden and Norway, where Pickford hands out chocolates from a train window. Still, most of the intertitles could have been placed in the reel long after the film stars left Scandinavia. At the beginning, the Stockholm Grand Hotel is preparing for the film stars’ arrival by making sure there is enough Marabou chocolate, since Pickford’s sweet tooth is well known! In Oslo, as the motorcade passes Freia’s flagship store, Fairbanks points at it and blurts out, “Look Mary! There’s Freia!” The film ends at a reception at the villa of the American minister. Here as well, Freia’s virtues are praised in an intertitle.
Several newspaper articles record that the royal couple of the silver screen were also received by the Norwegian King and Queen at their summer residence, Bygdø Kongsgård.
At some point, the first part, shot in Stockholm, was separated from the second part, showing the stars’ visit in Norway. The first section ended up at the Swedish Film Institute. Just recently, while putting together this programme, we realized that the assumed Swedish film, Mary og Doug eller Da Stockholm og Kristiania stod på hodet, was actually part of the Norwegian production. The two parts were finally reunited this year.
About the DCP: The source for the first part of the DCP, a downsized acetate dupe negative found at the Svenska Filminstitutet, was scanned in 2019 in Stockholm. The original full-frame nitrate of the second part survived at the Nasjonalbiblioteket, Mo i Rana, and was digitized in 2018. The two parts were joined together in 2019.

Tina Anckarman & Magnus Rosborn