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Category: Gustav Wiklund

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Plot: friends, family and other lovers - and heroin too.

Sängkamrater (or Bedfellows, released for reasons unknown in the English-speaking world under the porntastic title Wide Open) reunited Christina Lindberg with Finnish director Gustav Wiklund for what was to be the last of her prime titles during her initial run. Lindberg had worked with Wiklund on Exponerad (1971) three years before and saw her back in familiar territory. After her excursion into Japan that was Journey to Japan (1973) and Sex and Fury (1973), as well as her induction into German softcore with Schoolgirl Report Part 4: What Drives Parents to Despair (1972), Secrets of Sweet Sixteen (1973), and Schoolgirl Report 7 (1974) Christina returned home to Sweden. There she would launch herself to cult cinema superstardom with Thriller – A Cruel Picture (1973), Anita Swedish Nymphet (1973), and the Shirley Corrigan romp Around the World with Fanny Hill (1974). Wide Open could, nay, should have been Lindberg’s last hurrah and the Three the Hard Way (1974) of Nordporn, except that neither of the Maries Liljedahl or Forså, were nowhere to be seen. In the year that ABBA rose to worldwide prominence by winning the Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo” Lindberg was just about to fall into certain obscurity and irrelevance.

Christina Lindberg

The other big name here is auburn haired demi-goddess Solveig Andersson. Andersson, of course, was Eva (1969) and had starred in the Danish-Swedish classic Dagmar's Hot Pants, Inc. (1971). It wasn’t even her first time supporting Lindberg as she had already done so in the contemptible and widely derided rape revenge caper Thriller – A Cruel Picture (1973) the year before. For lack of a better descriptor Wide Open is kind of a Swedish precursor to Popcorn and Ice-Cream (1978), although this being Scandinavian (and not German, Italian or British) it’s far from cheery.

For Gustav Wiklund this was supposed to be his pièce de résistance, his masterwork as he not only directed, but took to writing and producing it as well. Not that anyone could blame him. What would you do if you had Christina Lindberg and Solveig Andersson running around the set half-naked? In one of life’s bitter ironies Wide Open has become something of a forgotten title, as it’s seldom talked about when discussing the Lindberg and Andersson canon. For those hoping to see Christina Lindberg and Solveig Andersson engaging in extensive mutual groping will be sorely disappointed as no such thing will be forthcoming. Wide Open sort of bounces and straddles around (both in the literal and figurative sense) aimlessly before finally deciding what it wants to be. Not that that warrants the effort of seeking it out. Wide Open has been relegated to obscurity for a reason. This is the sort of thing you don't want to dirty up your resumé.

Paul (Kent-Arne Dahlgren) is an unambitious taxi driver in the capital of Stockholm. One day he picks up his bewildered alcoholist father Ollie (Âke Fridell) at a horse race and brings him to his apartment. In the apartment Paul’s journalist girlfriend Marianne (Solveig Andersson) is in the habit of wandering around naked, and she’s none too pleased with the improvised arrangement of having his father sleep off his hangover. Things don’t improve between the young lovers when Ollie suddenly assaults Marianne for no discernable reason. Thankfully Paul is able to intervene. To ease the tensions and diffuse to quarrel the two decide to go to a party. While Paul is in another room making out with a willing and able blonde girl Marianne runs into her free-spirited, promiscuous, and libertine sister Beryl (Gunilla Larsson). Things take a turn for the complicated when Marianne and Beryl’s parents (Per-Axel Arosenius and Karin Miller) come to visit unexpectedly the next morning and an impromptu birthday party is hastily thrown to fake that their relationship is at least halfway functional.

The following morning Paul wakes up between a naked Marianne and Beryl. Seething with anger and jealousy Marianne then departs for Copenhagen, Denmark on a work assignment. Beryl is an aspiring actress that has taken up nude modeling to pay the bills. When she picks up her friend Eva (Christina Lindberg) at the airport she speaks about her modeling work, and Eva’s all ears to make some money on the side. As it happens Eva is in an abusive relationship with Peter (Leif Ahrle) who degrades her in various ways and insists she do housekeeping chores au naturel. Beryl tries to seduce Paul, but he’s far more interested in Eva. Meanwhile the two girls go the studio of Mr. X (Jan-Olof Rydqvist) to shoot another nude spread. Afterwards Beryl is offered a stripping assignment at a gentlemen’s convention. On the way home she’s picked up by overweight bald deviant Leonard (Sture Ström) who locks her up and whips her. Beryl manages to escape and to hide her modesty grabs the nearest fur coat. What Beryl doesn’t know is that said coat has heroin hidden in the lining. When his shipment doesn’t arrive Mr. X dispatches his enforcer (Tor Isedal) to locate the missing heroin. He forces Marianne, Beryl, and Eva at gunpoint into a bout of bottomless go-go dancing to ensure they aren't carrying any of the goods….

Wide Open may be somewhat forgotten in the annals of Nordporn, it does feature a whole host of familiar faces. First, there are Tor Isedal from Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1960) and Exponerad (1971), and Åke Fridell from The Seventh Seal (1957), and Dagmar's Hot Pants, Inc. (1971). Back once again is character actor Per-Axel Arosenius from Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz (1969) and who played fatherly roles to Lindberg in Maid in Sweden (1971) and Thriller – A Cruel Picture (1973). Jan-Olof Rydqvist had crossed paths with Solveig Andersson in Eva (1969) and with Christina Lindberg in Anita Swedish Nymphet (1973). The remainder of the cast consists of television actors Robert Sjöblom and Gunilla Larsson. Despite their presence here Sjöblom and Larsson had and build extensive careers in television afterwards. As for svenske skønhed Christina Lindberg and Solveig Andersson, both were well past the apex of their respective careers. Lindberg’s initial run ended with a disappointing thud as she has more of a supporting role here, and she’s given little to do besides bouncing and strutting around naked. The same goes for Andersson, whose star burned bright and fierce in Eva (1969), something which her subsequent roles never were able to consolidate. Compared to both Gunilla Larsson was, while not exactly unattractive, on the plain side of average. That Wide Open gets the most out of her is with good reason too. In stark contrast to Andersson and Lindberg, Larsson could actually, you know, act.

Swedish erotica has the tendency to be downbeat and depressing most of the time. Unlike German, Italian, and British sexploitationers of the day Wide Open is about as far from fun and breezy as you could get. At least the whole fur coat plotpoint was used to far greater effect in the Cine-S classic The Hot Girl Juliet (1981) (with the triarchy of Iberian softcore sex goddesses Eva Lyberten, Andrea Albani, and Vicky Palma). There’s ample opportunity to get an eyeful of bröst and röv from the two main flicka. Typically, it’s Lindberg for the former and Andersson for the latter. Not that we would want it any other way, but by 1974 the whole spiel was getting kind of old. No wonder Gustav Wiklund grabbed every opportunity to have Solveig Andersson cavorting around completely nude.

Five long years had passed since Eva (1969) and Wide Open consistently fails to capture her beauty. Which is strange considering director of photography Max Wilén was behind the lens here too. Even Christina Lindberg looks more bored and boring than ever. Dog Days (1970), Sex at the Olympics (1972) or Love In 3-D (1974) this most certainly is not. Wide Open didn't even have a gimmick the way the amiable and psychotronic Four Dimensions of Greta (1972) had. This is one of those titles that is long overdue for an extensive restoration and high-end 4/8k remastering complete with digital color correction and improved audio. In recent years Christina Lindberg has been vocal in her disdain for Wide Open and has openly expressed her discontent and disappointment with how it turned out. It’s not exactly hard to see why she would feel that way. Wide Open was so cheap it couldn’t even afford a decent poster – and recent DVD releases have been forced to use images from Lindberg’s nude spreads of the day instead. In the Lindberg canon this is probably the most impoverished, incoherent, and lazy of all her prime features.

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Plot: did it all truly happen, or is it merely in Lena’s head?

The best thing you can say in retrospect about Christina Lindberg is that she knew exactly where her strengths lie. Lindberg was a nude model first and she never got a hang of acting no matter how hard she tried. There’s no such thing as a quintessential Christina Lindberg movie for a reason, and probably the best thing she did was the deeply cynical Rötmånad (1970) (where she had an absolute minimum of dialogue) and Exponerad (or Exposed - released in Norway as Sommeren med Lena, no doubt to sucker in the unsuspecting Ingmar Bergman fan, and in the US as The Depraved) followed closely by Anita Swedish Nymphet (1973). Maid In Sweden (1971), often passed off by unscrupulous distributors as an innocuous coming of age drama, pointed exactly to where Lindberg’s career was headed from that point onward. For a few years Christina was a softcore superstar before the advent of hardcore pornography forced her out of the business and into a career in journalism. Decades later Lindberg still can’t escape the looming shadow of the infamous rape revenge caper Thriller – A Cruel Picture (1973). Widely hailed as Lindberg’s most artistic feature Exponerad has shades of Czechoslovakian coming of age fairytale Valerie and Her Week Of Wonders (1970) but it never quite has such lofty aspirations. Gloria Guida might have had The Minor (1974) and Christina had this, but Jaroslava Schallerová got there first.

An image, or reputation, for good or ill, is hard to shake. In the span of just a few years miss Lindberg had worked with Dan Wolman, Gustav Wiklund, Torgny Wickman, Ernst Hofbauer, Walter Boos, and Joe Sarno. Some of whom she would work with on multiple occasions. In doing so she had, perhaps unwittingly, reduced her chances of finding work outside of what she was doing already – and most of the projects she was offered fared accordingly. That isn’t to say that Christina Lindberg was some misunderstood talent, and her expressionless, glassy-eyed style can best be compared to Zora Kerova, Sabrina Siani, or Christina’s Norwegian equivalent and one-time black metal starlet Monica Bråten. Typecast from Rötmånad (1970) onwards Lindberg was an international star who worked in Germany, Hong Kong, and Japan. The majority of that international work seemed to encompass the two years from 1972-74 when she wasn’t working at home. In that capacity she appeared in Girls Who Come to Munich (1972), Schoolgirl Report 4 (1972), Secrets of Sweet Sixteen (1973), Love In Three Dimensions (1973), and Schoolgirl Report 7 (1974).

Lena Svensson (Christina Lindberg) is a seventeen-year-old promiscuous libertine at the height of her sexuality who takes flights of fancy in all sorts of sordid scenarios to escape her dull lovelife with Jan (Björn Addely). When things get boring she likes to imagine herself getting abused, molested, and/or killed in a fiery road collision. Lena has cheated on Jan, and he sends her out a retreat where she encounters naturist vacationers Lars (Janna Carlsson) and Ulla (Birgitta Molin). The trio engages in the usual skinnydipping, sunbathing, and nude frolicking until Jan comes to collect Lena. It is then that the lecherous Helge (Heinz Hopf) comes into the picture. Helge coerces Lena into partaking in hedonistic sex parties and extorts her with nude photographs. Life with Jan is safe and comfortable, but the underworld that Helge shows her has so much to offer too. With Helge Lena experiences pleasures she never had before. She gets felt up, tied up, and exposed in about every way. Compared to him Jan is a tremendous bore. At some point Lena is going to have to make a choice. Is the predatory Helge The Depraved of the American distribution title? Is it Lena who looks for each and every opportunity to escape her rural and boring country life - or both? The question Exponerad asks is, “did it all truly happen, or is it merely in Lena’s head?”

That Sweden’s most famous anime sex doll would try to establish a footing in the Far East was all but a given. However, since she didn’t speak the language and/or possessed any martial arts skills she didn’t get any farther than the Eurospy romp Adventure in Denmark (1973) from Hong Kong, and Sex and Fury (1973) and The Kyoto Connection (1973) in Japan. By the time of One-Week Bachelors (1982) she was made redundant, and her career fizzled out. In hindsight it’s a tad difficult to believe that Christina never found work in Italy (Renato Polselli and Luigi Batzella would’ve loved her giant bust) or in the burgeoning Cine-S movement in Spain (Ignacio F. Iquino would have put her to good use), as would have José Ramón Larraz in his horrors. Likewise it’s a bit disconcerting that Tinto Brass never took notice of her voluminous behind, and it’s quite unfair that Christina Lindberg didn’t become a minor Eurcult royalty the way Evelyne Kraft, Janet Ågren, Marie Liljedahl, and Leena Skoog did. To her credit Christina had a habit of appearing in films with people that ostensibly would become more famous than her, whether they were Stellan Skarsgård or Lena Olin. In 1971 miss Lindberg had just started her conquest of Scandinavian sexploitation scene, and Exponerad does more than just showcase her voluptuous naked form, although there’s plenty of that too. No. Exponerad is actually pretty creative when it tries.

For all that can be said about Gloria Guida’s tour de force in bawdy Italian sex comedies at least half of them were actually pretty lighthearted and entertaining. Lindberg’s on the other hand were depressing for the most part. Anita Swedish Nymphet (1973) is downbeat and cynical compared to something as casually sexist and lovingly exploitative as Blue Jeans (1975) (Mario Imperoli’s ode to Gloria Guida’s perfectly shaped ass bordered on the poetic, lest we forget), Maid In Sweden (1971) has a nihilistic mean streak that you wouldn’t find in Monika (1974) or even So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious… (1975). It even goes as far as to recycle an entire 5 minute sequence from Tarzan Triumphs (1943) with Johnny Weissmuller in one scene. To go from the whimsical Rötmånad (1970) to Thriller – A Cruel Picture (1973), a take on Turkish thriller Karate Girl (1973), in just three years is…. something. And none of it is any good. Exponerad on the other hand displays a sense of creativity and playfulness otherwise absent in Lindberg’s filmography up to that point. The Minor (1974) does what Exponerad does in a far more lighthearted manner, and it never has the ick factor. Be that as it may, at least Exponerad attempts - however marginally and futilely - to do something, anything, different to provide la Lindberg with whatever minimal chance to act.

As legend has it, Exponerad premiered at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival in France where it was almost immediately banned in 27 countries. Promoters eagerly used said ban to sell Exponerad on the international market, and Gustav Wiklund was offered a lucrative contract to work under American exploitation mogul Roger Corman. An offer which he, inexplicably and for largely opaque reasons, apparently declined. Understandably Wiklund soon to came to regret his decision, and Lindberg’s career in America was largely built around her appeal as a delectable Scandinavian import. And what projects Christina chose to star in didn’t exactly help either. It’s one thing to star in coming of age dramas as Maid In Sweden (1971) and Anita Swedish Nymphet (1973), but to go from Exponerad and something as comically innocuous as Love In Three Dimensions (1973) to Thriller – A Cruel Picture (1973), and Wide Open (1974) speaks volumes of where the heads of Lindberg’s handlers/publicists were at the time. It’s tragic enough that after One-Week Bachelors (1982) Christina disappeared from the silver screen for about two decades. Since 2000 she has acted sporadically but it looks as if Sweden’s most popular export will forever be relegated to obscurity. Not even Quentin Tarantino (who never hid his adoration for Lindberg’s tenure in exploitation) apparently was able to legitimize the Swedish star into the mainstream.