Maid in Sweden (1971)

Overrated and overhyped

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

'Maid in Sweden' is a soft porn. starring Christina Lindberg. For those old enough to remember, it evokes nice memories about the love & sex morals of the early seventies.Although 'Maid in Sweden' offers us a coherent story, one cannot overlook its downright lousy acting - in particular that of Lindberg herself. Its shooting could also have been done better, even by the standards of 1971.My DVD also offers a recent 10 minutes-interview with 57-year old Christina Lindberg. Although she answers her questions politely enough, one feels that Lindberg has left the nude shooting in her young life behind her a long ago ago already.

Sweet, naive, yet lovely and enticing virginal 16-year-old innocent country girl Inga (the delectable Christina Lindberg of "Thriller: A Cruel Picture" fame in her film debut) goes to the city to spend the weekend with her older, more worldly and experienced sister Greta (yummy blonde Monica Ekman) and her cad boyfriend Casten (the extremely jerky Krister Ekman). Inga gets in touch with her budding sexuality, loosens up, and learns the joys of booze, dancing, and intercourse. Casten's equally loutish friend Bjorn (homely beanpole Leif Naeslund) forces himself on Inga on their first date, but she falls for the creep anyway! When Inga decides to take a bath one fateful day, Casten naturally can't help but join the luscious lass for some splashy carnal fun (can anyone blame the guy?). Director Dan Wolman relates the sordid coming-of-age story at a steady pace and delivers plenty of tasty nudity and steamy soft-core sex scenes. The central plot clearly imitates Joe Sarno's sexploitation classic "Inga." (Ironically, Lindberg went on to appear in the Sarno flicks "Swedish Wildcats" and "Young Playthings"!). Not surprisingly, Wolman shows off Christina's awesomely abundant physical attributes as often as possible: Lindberg disrobes with pleasing regularity, masturbates in bed after catching Greta and Casten making love, cools off with a shower (shot in sensuous slow motion for extra erotic effect), and performs her sex scenes with scorching lusty abandon. Moreover, she also manages to deliver a touching and natural performance in her first lead role. Hasse Welin's pretty cinematography leers over Christina's fabulously voluptuous figure with undisguised lascivious intent while the catchy soundtrack boasts plenty of tuneful folksy rock songs. Highly recommended viewing for Christina Lindberg fans.

A young woman (Christina Lindberg) goes to the big city to visit her older sister who, unbeknownst to her parents, is shacking up with a jerky older guy. Once there, in between some scenic interludes of her shopping and ice skating with her sister, there are a lot of even more scenic interludes of her showering and changing clothes. She has a strange dream where she's apparently gang-raped in a night club, and then goes home to her sister, who makes a lesbian pass at her(!). She is awakened by the sounds of the sister and boyfriend having sex and goes to watch them for awhile before returning to her room and pleasuring herself. The next day the butt-wipe boyfriend introduces her to one of his butt-wipe friends, whom she falls in love with, despite the fact that he date-rapes her on their first date. What little conflict there is in this whole movie then occurs when the boyfriend decides he wants in on the action too.You kind of get the idea that the whole flimsy plot of this movie is an excuse to get the luscious Christina Lindberg naked as early and often as possible (which alone might make it worth watching for some). Unlike an earlier reviewer, I found this pretty hard to take seriously as a coming-of-age story, but if you do take it seriously the rape scenes might be considered pretty offensive. Personally, I took the whole thing as a fantasy. It's well known that both women and (non-rapist)men often indulge in these kind of rape fantasies. As genre critic Thomas Weissner once astutely pointed out, rape in real-life is certainly not fun or entertaining, but then neither is murder and we certainly get a kick out of that as long as it's put in the fictional/fantasy context of cinema.Interestingly the sisters here are named "Inga" and "Greta", which are the same names of the characters in Joe Sarno's "Seduction of Inga" (the sequel to his ground-breaking erotic classic "Inga") which was released the same year. These are no doubt pretty common Swedish names, but it's certainly possible that this was meant to ride the coattails of "Inga", and that Christina Lindberg might have been cast in this (one of her earliest roles) because she kind of resembles "Inga" star Marie Lillejedahl (albeit with an even more impressive torso). Lindberg herself would later star in Sarno's best film "Young Playthings". Like a lot of the more famous Swedish erotica this has a lot of American names in the cast and an American title (which makes absolutely no sense given the movie). The voices were dubbed either by the actresses themselves or by other Swedish women, so the dialogue is either more sexy or more incoherent (depending on your point of view) than your usual softcore/sexploitation film. This movie is clearly not for everybody, but you know who you are.

Inga, 16, travels to the city to visit her sister Greta. The walls of Greta's apartment are thin and soon Inga hears Greta and her boyfriend, Carsten making love. Inga's arousal and subsequent journey into adulthood are beautifully and tastefully depicted. The film is lit with exquisite subtlety and edited with calm good taste. Maid in Sweden was one of the first adult films to play in mainstream theaters in the early seventies, and as a sixteen year old myself at the time, this film had particular relevance for me. Upon seeing the film again it still stands the test of time.