Hello there fellow movie freaks, your humble cult film blog seems to be getting hotter and hotter with some of the most interesting sexploitation films the wonderful 70's could ever deliver.
Tonight's main course will be the last movie in which our sex goddess Christina Lindberg had a starring role (well, actually more like supporting role anyways but her promo pictures did help the film widen its audience). Released in 1975 under the original swedish title of Sängkamrater, a title that literally translates to English as "Bed Fellows" but for some unknown reason to me it was titled as Wide Open.
Paul and Marianne are roommates and lovers but they don’t get along very
well. One night after a party the couple bring home her sister Beryl
(pronounced “barrel”) just before Marianne goes out of town. So that
leaves the womanizing Paul and Beryl to get into trouble, and they do.
She begins stripping for a nude photographer and he starts fucking the
photographer’s girlfriend Eva (Lindberg). While the four of them are
partying one evening, Beryl accidentally gets locked out of the
apartment and picked up by the sinister Mr. X who takes her to his house
and starts assaulting her. During her escape, she grabs a mink coat to
cover herself on the way out, and it turns out to be filled with drugs.
Marianne returns home to find that Paul and Beryl have gotten into
trouble and in the exciting and completely oddball ending, Paul, Beryl,
Marianne and Eva end up in a showdown with the bad guys.
Convenient opening titles.
Not talented but beatiful enough.
This movie’s plot is a mess. My synopsis is cleaned up and written to make sense which Wide Open
barely does. The story is completely convoluted and random and the
Benny Hill-style ending comes completely out of nowhere. I think it is
supposed to be sort of a dramedy but fails considerably. The acting is
more than adequate but they didn’t have much to go on. In the ways that
the film fails as a coherent story, it succeeds in being a pretty decent
softcore porn flick. All three lead actresses are nude as much as they
are clothed and that’s not a bad thing with these particular ladies.
Lindberg is a given; she is a goddess pure and simple and really struts
her gorgeous assets here. The pleasant surprises are Solveig Andersson
(Marianne) and Gunilla Larsson (Beryl), both sexy ladies in completely
different ways. Andersson, much like Lindberg, is a big-breasted
brunette beauty. Larsson though, it took me about half of the movie to
decide whether she had “character” or she was just weird looking.
She has a unique, cute face and small, very sincere boobs. She grew on
me.
There was a definite theme throughout the movie that hammered home the
point that all men are assholes. Paul was a complete creep who treated
all women like shit and for some reason, they couldn’t resist his
disgusting sexual advances even when they knew he was fucking other
women. The motherfucker won’t even take his clothes off to bang them;
they get naked, he climbs on top of them, unzips his zipper and sticks
it in… romantic! It isn’t until the sappy end when he finds “true love”
that he actually gives her the courtesy of not giving her denim burn on
her coochie. In one scene the photographer has Eva vacuuming in the nude
and then he literally kicks her in the ass and she stumbles to the
floor. These dudes need a good punch to the cock. In the interview with
director Gustav Wiklund in the DVD extras, he explains that this was on
purpose but doesn’t really go into why. Lindberg is also in the
interview feature and she still looks good, especially for her age and
she had awesome cleavage.
Nice vintage sunglasses.
Cumface.
Like many sexploitation films of the 70's you might be saying to yourself, "Well it can't be all awful, Christina
Lindberg is in it!". True, but nowhere near as much as your led to
believe. Ms. Swedish Sex Goddess is a mere secondary character, only
showing up to showcase her buxom twins (and other assets) every few
minutes. A shame since having her in the film are it's only
redeemable/shining moments. There's a scene where Lindberg
vacuums...naked. God bless sexploitation.
To be blunt, Wide Open is flat out boring. It's not erotic,
titillating or fun to watch at all. Besides the aforementioned nudity
courtesy of Christina Lindberg, this is an easy pass.However, if you're a Lindberg fan seeking for her complete filmography, then you need to add it to your watched collection but, if you're new to the genre, this may not be the most appropriate film to get a taste of what European sexploitation is about.
This is exploitation.
What do we have here?
The DVD from Impulse Pictures is pretty standard as far as extras. The
interview described above, a Lindberg photo gallery and trailers but my
favorite thing is the reversible nude cover… HUBBA HUBBA! Transfer wise,
the quality is on par with a decent VHS picture. There is some obvious
yet small film debris throughout and both sides of the screen glow
pretty brightly during the darker scenes. The colors are also muted and
drab. That’s not to say it isn’t watchable because it definitely is,
just don’t expect anything stunning. It is 1.66:1 widescreen which means
you will have tiny black lines on each side of your 16×9 TV. The Dolby
2.0 soundtrack is perfectly sufficient with no apparent problems. This
isn’t Goddess Lindberg’s best movie as she is relegated down to a
supporting role (due to budget restraints according to Wiklund) but they
make the most of her and keep her lovely globes mostly
uncovered. Christina Lindberg, soft porn and Swedish sensationsfilms
fans alike should most assuredly check out Wide Open just for the skin
of it!
This is my kind of nanny.
Hairy Beaver.
Working over time.
Here's a public domain version of the film (non remastered, and certainly not taken from the Synapse films DVD but, hey, it's something!
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