Servants' entrance

The Brief

The spoiled upper-class girl Helga takes a job as a maid under a false name in order to learn how to become more independent after her father loses much of his fortune. Five films have been made based on Sigrid Boo’s 1930 bestseller Vi som går kjøkkenveien (We Who Enter Through the Kitchen Door), which, alongside Knut Hamsun’s Victoria, is the Norwegian novel that has been adapted most times for the screen – in Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, and American versions. In the American adaptation from 1934, Janet Gaynor (known from Sunrise and A Star Is Born) plays the lead role, with the story relocated to a Hollywood-style fantasy version of Sweden. Servants’ Entrance is a romantic comedy that reflects the economic downturn, gender roles, and class divides of the 1930s – themes also present in Boo’s novel – while also invoking American ideals of entrepreneurship and work ethic. The elegant dialogue was written by Samson Raphaelson, who also scripted many of Ernst Lubitsch’s finest comedies. Walt Disney created the dream sequence in which Helga is put on trial by animated, singing kitchen utensils for the careless way she has treated them. Eirik Frisvold Hanssen, researcher at the National Library of Norway, introduces the screening. 35mm preservation print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.