When actor/director Edvin Adolphson was casting Munkbrogreven in the summer of 1934, he discovered Ingrid Bergman among the students of the Royal Dramatic Theatre School who used to work as extras at AB Svensk Filmindustri’s studios in Råsunda, north of Stockholm. He offered her a part in the film, but she was told by the school’s director Olof Molander (brother of Gustaf, who would later direct her in several films) that if she accepted, she would have to leave her studies. She decided to enter into the world of cinema.
The film is an adaptation of a stage comedy, which premiered in February 1934. Munkbrogreven has all the characteristic traits of the genre, including the type-casting, such as the thick police officers, the gossiping but good-hearted women, and the beautiful young couple on which righteousness and the future depends. But despite the stereotypes, the film is a very genuine portrait of a run-down and poor Stockholm neighbourhood, where everyone looks out for each other and where the threat is coming from deceitful members of the upper class from the outside. The on-location footage gives a genuine record of a way of life and milieus, and the way the tightly-knit community is depicted, including a touching sequence with ragged faces in the interior of a shelter for homeless, is reminiscent of some German and French films of the era. Munkbrogreven could perhaps best be described as a true ‘comédie populaire’.
Ingrid Bergman is one of several characters in the hotel around which most of the action is centered, and in her first proper screen performance she already displays a remarkable presence and with very small means creates interest in her character. After Munkbrogreven, she was to star in another three features already the same year, and instantly became the most celebrated actress in Sweden.