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Jon Mirsalis on Piano

Stiller returned to comedy with Erotikon, a more refined and stylized film of comic sophistication that is perhaps the greatest comedy of the Swedish silent film era, and that influenced Ernst Lubitsch and his famous "touch." In this adaptation of Hungarian playwright Ferenc Herczeg's play The Blue Fox, no expense was spared in an attempt to compete with Hollywood films flooding Swedish markets. Even the Stockholm Opera was enlisted as extras to perform the specially commissioned play within a play for the movie. In stark contrast to many of the other works of Stiller, Erotikon is set entirely in an urban milieu and openly challenges social taboos in the story of a wife simultaneously courting two lovers in a comic portrayal of love and infidelity.