Nøglehullet

I sought out this Swedish movie via a recommendation from Daniel Ekeroth's excellent recent book "Swedish Sensationfilms" (although, come to think of it, he doesn't so much recommend this as he does include a VERY appealing picture of star Marie Ekorre). Unfortunately, when I got it, it turned out to be--despite having TWO different English-language titles--entirely in Swedish with no subtitles. But it isn't too hard to follow the standard porn scenario here. A young Swedish man is enlisted by his employer to make a pornographic movie. He happens to be secretly dating the employer's teenage daughter (thus one of the English-language titles), who--when she isn't shagging him silly--becomes interested in helping with the project. To do so, she does a lot of real-life "research"--like spying on her own father with another woman through a keyhole (thus the other English title and, I believe, the literal Swedish translation). Much sex and (perhaps) some hilarity ensues.

Swedish actress Marie Ekorre may be somewhat familiar to Eurotrash viewers because, like her fellow country-woman Christina Lindberg, she appeared in a number of the infamous German "schulmadchen-report" films. Like Lindberg, she didn't look at all like your average well-worn porno skank, but had a really fresh "girl-next-door" appeal to her (that is if the girl living next door to YOU is ridiculously beautiful with a pretty much a perfect body that she freely displays at every possible opportunity). Ekorre stays out of the typical Swedish 70's hardcore porn scenes, leaving those to the less attractive actresses, but she has a couple long softcore scenes (one filmed in comical fast motion)mixed with plenty of other generic gratuitous nudity.

I can't really rave about the plot (or lack thereof) or the hilarious dialogue (which I didn't understand a word of), but if this is worth seeing at all, it's definitely because of Ekorre who easily occupies the same pantheon as other nubile Swedish sex goddesses like Christina Lindberg, Marie Lilljedahl, Marie Forsa, and Ewe Aulin. And mixing this kind of erotica with the intriguing exotica of 70's-era Sweddish exploitation cinema always makes for a pretty heady brew, even in a rather dimwitted--if not downright stupid--movie like this.

Self-reflexive porn (about the making of porn) is an important area of the industry, but American filmmaker Paul Gerber in one of his Scandinavian entries MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER, ruins the chance to come up with something after establishing a workable premise. Result is an adequately sexy time-killer.

Marie Ekkore is attractive heroine Mette, whose cheesecake photographer boyfriend Soren gets a gig from her dad (who doesn't know about his offspring's relationship with Soren) to write and direct a different kind of porn film. The assignment is to write "something believable, about real life", a challenge in the face of the hokey nature of virtually all porn. Dad and his partner Jens have script approval.

Mette and Soren dive into the project, determined to make a go of it. She decides that they model the script on real, "ordinary" people, including her parents and Jens, so they spy on them and adapt their peccadilloes to the screenplay. Punchline is that daddy & Jens reject the script, finding it totally "unbelievable", not recognizing any of their own antics which we've just watched. At this point the director stupidly gives us a "highlights" montage and ends the film just as pointlessly as the porn he has been implicitly criticizing from the outset.

One big plus is that most of the cast, with the odd exception of Jens' sexy secretary Lone, is dubbed into English with thick Scandi accents, rather than the usual anonymous voices, retaining some of the flavor of the original. Director remains a mystery, revered for a couple of classic films like SCHOOL GIRL and LIZ, but hardly worthy of the transatlantic genius mantle achieved by Joe Sarno, who also balanced New York and Scandi projects effortlessly.

For the second time recently, I found in this film a demonstration of the truism regarding the erotic superiority of softcore to hardcore in its massage parlor scenes, where a handjob, fingering or merely oiling proves far more stimulating than the tedious "in & out" footage required by the XXX genre.