AllMovie

This convoluted, flashback-filled melodrama, the first film of director Carl Dreyer, introduces Karl Victor von Sendlingen (Halvard Hoff), President of the Court in his Danish town, as a man haunted by his oath to his father (Elith Pio), never to marry a commoner. Although he falls in love with his niece's governess Hermine Lippert (Betty Kirkebye), he deserts her when she becomes pregnant. Many years later, von Sendlingen discovers that his daughter, Victorine Lippert (Olga Raphael-Linden) is on trial for having murdered her baby. The innocent Victorine, who was herself seduced and abandoned by a nobleman, is condemned to death, but her father is able to commute her sentence. He then frees her from her cell and flees the country with her, resigning his position. When he returns home a few years later, von Sendlingen falls from the ruins of his ancestral castle and perishes. 19/70