Film Forum

Sweden, 1976
Written and Directed by Bo Widerberg
Adapted from the 1971 novel, The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Starring Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt, Sven Wollter, Thomas Hellberg
Approx. 110 min.

Widerberg’s biggest commercial success was this detective thriller about the pursuit of a man who killed a corrupt police officer. Adapting the popular novel The Abominable Man, Widerberg cast comic actor Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt against type as the dour, pragmatic investigator Martin Beck. A police procedural moving between expertly staged action sequences and realistic Stockholm street scenes, the film shows Widerberg’s ability to lend authenticity to a genre movie.

Presented with support from The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film

Reviews

“A keen-eyed, unsparing and absorbing, multilayered Swedish film. Widerberg displays several varieties of excellence. Not the least is his willingness, at a time when it seems that technique is everything and coherence nil, to treat his audience to ideas as well.”
– Lawrence Van Gelder, The New York Times

“Among Widerberg’s best, most intelligent, thoughtful, and disciplined films, showing a country which appears to have solved all social problems, but only by limiting itself to a superficial definition of what social problems really are.”
– Robin Wood