This commercial is presented as an actuality film: even with its fictional story, it has every characteristic of non-fiction. The Swedish actor Gösta Ekman – internationally known for playing the title role in F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926) and whose fame was also of course well established in Norway – is filmed visiting Oslo. We first see him enjoying the view at a restaurant on the Oslo waterfront, in an area called Frognerkilen. He seems relaxed sipping a drink on the terrace of the Christiania Roklub, a sailing club also called the “Kongen” (King). (The clubhouse was opened in 1925, and still looks pretty much the same today.)
So far everything looks like a routine newsreel story. But then Ekman looks at his watch, and leaves suddenly in a car. He goes downtown and rushes into a pharmacy just in time before it closes. From this point onwards the film appears unmistakably staged: Ekman must get some Stomatol toothpaste before leaving town! However, the two languages used in the intertitles – the famous actor’s lines are in Swedish, while the store assistant’s lines are in Norwegian – try to convey a non-staged documentary feel (which of course is absurd, since it is a silent film!). This is also carried through when Ekman turns to the camera and addresses the audience directly. The film ends with an animated scene, not uncommon in Stomatol commercials, with a toothpaste-tube airplane circling the globe and writing the name of the product.
Stomatol was one of Norway’s largest companies producing hygiene products. The company was started in Norway in 1896 when its owner Carl A. Høyer negotiated the agency agreement with the parent Swedish toothpaste company. The brand was established on the Norwegian market by large commercial campaigns, not only at theatres, but also on public transport, in newspaper ads, and so forth.
In a manuscript for a book, published in 1999 many years after his death (Filmeventyret begynner – av og om filmpioneren Ottar Gladtvet, ed. Jan Anders Diesen), director Ottar Gladtvet (1890-1962) described his collaboration with the world-famous actor as a very pleasant experience, saying that Ekman was both lovable and professional: “One look at the manuscript was enough – and then, ‘Go ahead, Mr. Gladtvet, I’m in a hurry.’”
About the DCP: The source, an original tinted nitrate print, was digitized in 2018.

Tina Anckarman, Magnus Rosborn