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Marie Liljedahl returns as Inga in Joe Sarno's erotic drama sequel. Feature laden Retro-Seduction Cinema R0 USA DVD.
Inga (Marie Liljedahl) lives in a cheap boarding house in Sweden. She ran away with her first love Karl, but he has abandoned her and disappeared, leaving Inga to scrounge together a living. She eventually manages to find work as the secretary for a writer called Stig who quickly reveals his desire for her and they become lovers, but he tells Inga about a girl he used to know called Greta whom he loved but who abandoned him. When Stig goes away to the US, Inga is left alone for weeks with no word and eventually returns to Stockholm where she encounters Greta who explains that she was really Stig's step-daughter.
Sarno's follow-up to his sucessful erotic drama Inga is quite unusually for the genre and the era, pitched as a direct sequel. An opening narration ties in the events of the previous film and scenes from that film are used as flashbacks, although aside from this there are no real connections in the storyline and it could easily have stood alone.
Like Inga this film is certainly not a softcore pornographic film of the type that was dominating the sleazy cinemas in the 1970s, instead it is more focused on the storyline, with the sex scenes merging into the storyline and only one scene coming off as gratuitous as Inga stumbles upon the landlady of the boarding house organising an orgy with some of the female residents who are obviously strapped for cash - this scene does seem to suggest a potential subplot of Inga being forced to prostitute herself for rent, but Sarno chooses not to exploit this. Instead the storyline is a rather unimaginative affair with Inga having to choose between two different men - although the arrival on the scene of Greta does make for some interesting ideas and brings to the fore Sarno's often re-used theme of incest, the script never captures the clever twists and turns of the first film and it can often become rather dull.
Behind the camera Sarno is solid if uninspired. Much like in Inga the nude scenes are surprisingly coy, often cutting away and always incredibly brief, while the sex scenes are filmed with oddly close-up angles. We rarely see a couple having sex in a complete shot, the man underneath is usually kept entirely out of frame, which may have more to do with censorship than directoral choice, but does come off as very odd particularly since one scene drags this on for about a minute. Post-production inserts were used to spice up the "Grindhouse" US print with more explicit sex scenes, but also seem to make an appearance in this print in the midst of some of the sex scenes. Interestingly in order to hide the fact that flashback scenes from the first film were in monochrome, they are tinted in a mid-1920s style with a single colour which does look very odd, but fortunately they are only used on a couple of occasions. The soundtrack, a key part of the film's contemporary atmosphere is provided by future ABBA musicians Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson - the Inga theme is perhaps a little overused but is certainly appropriate to the era and never grates.
Marie Liljedahl returns as Inga and gives another solid performance although she is not required to do as many sex scenes here as in the many other films she shot since her first film with Sarno. Actor Lennart Lindberg has various film credits to his name and plays the older Stig, although his acting is not really up to the role and even in a couple of key scenes he looks completely wooden. Tommy Blom is much more effective as the young guitarist who falls for Inga while the gorgeous Inger Sundh is well worth watching as Greta.
With equally brief sex and nude scenes helmed in a rather unexciting manner, but without such an interesting storyline, The Seduction of Inga is a rather lesser sequel to Sarno's own original film. On the plus side, Marie Liljedahl is as good as ever and the beautiful Inger Sundh makes a very good looking love rival. Certainly of interest to fans of the first film, it is not one for anyone expecting a full-on Swedish softcore fantasy.
| Anyone famous in it? | Marie Liljedahl - beautiful Swedish cherub who also starred in the original Inga (1968) |
| Directed by anyone interesting? | Joe Sarno - a hard working American director who was one of the first sexploitation film-makers, working both in the US on films including Abigail Lesley Is Back in Town (1975) as well as making several films in Sweden. |
| Any gore or violence? | None |
| Any sex or nudity? | Several female topless and sex scenes, although certainly nothing explicit. |
| Who is it for? | Of interest to fans of Sarno and Marie Liljedahl but not particularly recommendable. |
| Visuals | Cropped Aspect Ratio - 1.33:1 fullscreen (original aspect ratio probably 1.66:1). Colour The print is not in the best condition. Colours are faded and have some blue derivation throughout and there is quite a bit of damage but it is generally watchable. Cropping is only evident in a couple of scenes. |
| Audio | English mono - sounds fine. |
| Subtitles | None. |
| Extras | Disc one includes:
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| Region | Region 1 (USA, North America) - NTSC |
| Other regions? | Not otherwise available on English friendly DVD. |
| Cuts? | The exact status of this print is uncertain - it omits most of the sex scenes filmed in post-production for the US "Grindhouse" release and uses a slightly different script, but does retain a couple of the additional shots as well as the voice-over in the narration that was not present in Sarno's original script and it is unclear when/where this version played. The Swedish version is believed to have originally run up to ten minutes longer although no servicable print of this is known to exist. The print used is English language. |