Een Carmen van het noorden

Summary

Jozef lives in a village in Holland with his mother and his betrothed, Mareike. He is called to military service and, bidding good-bye to his sweetheart, promises to return as soon as he is mustered out. He is assigned to military police duty in a city where Carmen, a bewitching young cigarette maker, lives. She gets into a dispute with one of the factory girls and, in a burst of fury, injures her with a pair of scissors. Jozef is summoned to arrest her. He resists her coquetish glances and manages to handcuff her and put her in prison. She persists in exerting her wiles until he, madly infatuated, consents to set her free. For this he is disgraced, imprisoned and finally dishonourably discharged. Carmen has hastened to the smugglers' headquarters and here he traces her. Mareike, growing anxious because she has heard nothing from Jozef for weeks, starts out in search of him. Carmen's charm has proved too strong for Jozef to resist. One night as he is jealously watching Carmen's flirtations with the military police whom she is detaining so that the smugglers can get over the border, Mareike comes to him, but he refuses to go home with her. Carmen's affection for Jozef is very fleeting and she soon gives him up for Dalboni, a popular opera singer she has met in a café. Carmen and Dalboni marry. Jozef, broken down and disheartened, comes to the theatre where Dalboni is singing. He finds Carmen and pleads with her. When she laughs at him, he stabs her to death.

Synopsis remarks: EYE Film Instituut Nederland has a copy of the version that was released in the USA and that has a happy end: Jozef attempts to murder Carmen by strangling her, does not succeed, and Carmen continues to live happily with her husband. Jozef goes to gaol for two years. When he is released he returns to his village, where he is lovingly received by his mother and by Mareike, who forgives him. Together they will face a happier future.