Det sägs på stan depicts a small town, where an increasing number of citizens start to receive anonymous letters, revealing that someone knows about their secrets. Soon gossip and slander in town escalate into panic. Everyone distrusts everyone else, and false rumours begin to spread with fatal consequences. The increasing hysteria is perfectly matched by the expressiveness of the film’s editing, sometimes reaching a furious pace, and the elaborate camerawork, taking full advantage of cinematographer Harry Hasso’s newly invented crane device.

When viewing Det sägs på stan today, the allusions to Nazism are quite obvious, indeed one of the town’s shop-keepers becomes a full-fledged demagogue, calling for a new world order at a meeting in a local café. Most of the contemporary critics failed, or didn’t bother, to see the parallells with the ongoing war; they were merely outraged at what they saw as a confused, non-sensical experiment.

Jon Wengström – Svenska Filminstitutet