Georg af Klercker is one of the forgotten masters of Swedish cinema. In 1916, he left the company of Sjöström and Stiller to become chief of the "Otterhällan" studios built by Hasselblad. Here, with the aid of the marvelous actress Mary Johnson, he completed twenty-seven feature films. As Peter Cowie points out: "Sjöström and Stiller were not the only directors to exploit the Swedish landscape in their pictures. Klercker's films were shot mostly on the West Coast, with its fringe of islands and fortresses. The Prisoner of Carlsten's Fort made good use of the old castle at Marstrand for its tale of an unscrupulous 'European' Count who is bent on stealing an explosives formula from a Swedish inventor." The mystery, involving the chemist, obviously modeled after Nobel, and his daughter (played by Mary Johnson), is virtually one protracted chase ending at a fortress just off the coast. Klercker's talent for narrative sweeps the melodrama along, but it is the inquisitive camera with its dense, textured image that heightens the action. From the extraordinarily lit exploration of the dungeons-complete with flashing torches-to a climactic chase on the seashore, in blazing sunshine and amid crashing waves, The Prisoner of Carlsten's Fort excels in its lucid composition. The film was originally tinted in sepia, blue and pink-a quality missing from the prints we see today-but we can still admire the exquisite photographic experiments of this early silent mystery à la Feuillade.