“Afgrunden” is the story of a young woman who leaves her fiancé for a circus artist. She doesn’t manage, however – despite the most erotic dance in early film history – to stop him from flirting with other beauties. The first film by Danish theatre director Urban Gad became a worldwide success and made Asta Nielsen an instant star far beyond the borders of Denmark.

Only thanks to her impeccable reputation and the high standing this most eminent author of early film history enjoyed, did Lois Weber’s ‘Hypocrites’ manage to escape censorship in 1915. No one else would have got away with showing a film about a medieval ascetic whose quest for spiritual truths culminates with a naked woman carved in stone. Nevertheless, the scandal was considerable: not everyone can handle the naked truth.

Much like the prima donnas of opera and dance, Alla Nazimova omitted her first name already during her lifetime, appearing as Nazimova tout court in the adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s theatre piece ‘Salomé’. She came up with the idea for the film, which she herself also produced and in part financed, as pressure on the production companies began to increase. Moralisers saw it as a decadent and dangerous oeuvre from which the general public needed to be shielded at all cost. The film only premiered several years after its completion. It found little recognition and remained the last production of this exotic Russian libertine. 

The aged aristocrat Alba d’Oltrevita yearns for her lost youth and enters into a bargain with the devil: if she renounces love, Mephisto will give her eternal beauty. Two brothers are courting Alba. She scornfully rejects passionate Sergio; she wants Tristano, Sergio’s brother. The tragedy takes its course when Sergio shoots himself and Alba feels remorse and love again for the first time. She is willing to accept mortality in return. Veiled as Tristano’s bride, Alba walks towards death.