挪威著名剧作家易仆生编剧，北欧电影黄金时代的开篇之作。全片實景挪威海岸拍攝，拍攝難度與戲劇張力超越當代。原本平凡的水手，戰時為了養家活口冒險出航，卻被軍人所俘。多年後脫身返家卻人事已非，只有滿腔怨怒相伴。某天，當年俘虜他的仇敵與相隨的妻女海上落難待援，他奮勇而至，卻陷入「復仇還是救援？」的天人交戰。
Terje Vigen, a sailor, suffers the loss of his family through the cruelty of another man. Years later, when his enemy's family finds itself dependent on Terje's beneficence, Terje must decide whether to avenge himself. Based on a poem written by Henrik Ibsen and entirely on location shooting at the Norwegian coast, the film claimed to be the most expensive production and marked the beginning of the Golden Age in the Nordic film history.

based on novel

A stranger comes to work at widow Halla's farm. Halla and the stranger fall in love, but when he is revealed as Eyvind, an escaped thief forced into crime by his family's starvation, they flee and become two of the many outlaws of Iceland's mountains.

It is extraordinary that this amazing film is not repeatedly shown. It is possibly the best demonstration of the genius (not an assessment to make casually) of Sjöstrom - with David Griffiths, the first person to demonstrate his brilliance by making films.
The film's aware mix of the naive vision of the ancestors sitting in the lodge in heaven, which Sjöstrom's character reaches by climbing a ladder to the clouds, and the grim, realist material of the unfaithful wife's child, alone would make it outstanding but finding this at a stage where it had virtually nothing in the way of antecedent is staggering.
Modern prints may not do justice to the sophistication of the film making. The performances do survive un-dimmed. Curious that Sjöstrom was able to take his mastery to Hollywood when the Scandinavian industry faltered but not to survive the challenge of sound - something which remains a mystery that could stand investigation.

1913 film by Victor Sjöström

Story of an inventor who, suffering betrayal in life, makes a career of it by becoming a clown whose act consists of getting slapped by all the other clowns. He falls in love with another circus performer, and those who betrayed him enter his life yet again.

An alcoholic, abusive ne'er-do-well is shown the error of his ways through a legend that dooms the last person to die on New Year's Eve before the clock strikes twelve to take the reins of Death's chariot and work tirelessly collecting fresh souls for the next year.