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Released by: Alpha Blue Archives
Released on: N/A
Director: Torgny Wickman
Cast: Chris Chittell, Jacqueline Laurent, Borhe Nyberg, Stellan Skarsgard
Year: 1975
The Movie:
A young man named Richard (Chris Chittell) snoops into the business of others and accidentally discovers that Helen Delaney (Jaqueline Laurent), the wife of a wealthy nuclear scientist named Simon Delaney (Borje Nyberg), is having an affair with another man. That's not the only dirt he uncovers, however, as he soon learns that the woman's son, Peter (Stellan Skarsgard), was driving busted for drunk driving - in fact, he didn't even have a license!
Always the opportunist, Richard, he shows up unannounced at the family's home with his girlfriend, Paula (Gilda Arancio), in tow. He tells them that she's his sister and the two make their way into the family's life by blackmailing the woman into letting them stay. That's not all that Richard wants, however, he's also insisting that the woman take care of his every want and need. When you take into account that pretty much everyone in this house has a rampant libido, including a maid named Ulla (Anita Ericsson) and butler named Philip (Bert Bellamn), you can see how things might get a little complicated for all involved, particularly when everyone keeps swapping partners!
Hungry Young Women is interesting more for who worked on it than for what actually happens in it. Yes, like many Swedish sex films of the seventies the sex scenes are shot with a bit of class and a load of style but the story is fairly disjointed in spots and one gets the impression that the filmmakers maybe bit off a bit more than they could chew with this one. There are a few too many head scratching moments for the plot to really work and the acting isn't good enough to let us forget that.
That said, the film is an interesting one. Directed by the late Torgny Wickman (credited as Tony Wickman) a year after he directed the one and only Christina Lindberg in Anita, the film features famous Swedish sexpot Anita Ericsson (of Mac Ahlberg's Flossie and Joe Sarno's Laura's Toys) in a sizeable role as well as an appearance from a very young Stellen Skarsgard - the same actor who has gone on to appear in films like Amistad and Goodwill Hunting! Jacqueline Laurent, who plays the blackmailed mother in the film, shows up in Jess Franco's Lorna The Exorcist while Gilda Arancio shows up in films like Lasse Braun's Body Love, Franco's Justine, and Jean Rollin's infamous Zombie Lake (she's cast in the memorable role as the blond who goes swimming - if you've seen the movie, you know who she is!).
The dubbing makes the film a little too corny for its own good and the soundtrack is, at times, quite ridiculous - particularly during the copious scenes of copulation that pad the picture - but the sets are nice and picturesque and the corny dialogue makes this an easy film to enjoy even if it isn't the most serious or impressive sex film to come out of Scandinavia during the boom years of the sixties and seventies. The sex scenes are solid (the lesbian scene is genuinely hot), the film moves along at a good pace and the ending is amusing and reasonably well played at that.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The full frame video transfer is not in the best of shape but it is watchable. There's an Alpha Blue Archives bug that appears on the bottom of the screen for the first ten seconds or so of the picture (and then reappears a couple more times as it plays out), which is unfortunate. Print damage is prevalent from start to finish and there are some pretty big scratches on the image as well as some mild compression artifacts in the opening scene. Not a great transfer, but again, it's watchable.
The English dubbed Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack is audible enough but it has some strange echo to it and the levels fluctuate here and there. You can understand everyone without having to strain, but a bit of background hiss pops in here and again and the echo/reverb is irritating.
Aside from the static menu screen and chapter selection option, Alpha Blue Archives have supplied trailers for Surfer Girls, Fred J. Lincoln's Same Time Every Year, another Lincoln film entitled A Place Beyond Shame starring Seka, Roberta Findlay's A Woman's Torment, and Sex And Comics.
The Final Word:
The presentation is far from perfect and more extras for this type of material are always very welcome but Hungry Young Women is a fun slice of seventies Swedish sleaze that features an interesting cast, some nice cinematography and a couple of nifty plot twists.