Too Many Turtlenecks

In 1971 Christina Lindberg aka Cristina Lindberg starred in a dramatic, something of an hallucinatory melancholic film, "Exponerad." The film debuted at the Cannes festival and manifested a following for the busty young Swedish skirt. This film marked her third credited role, and was directed by Gustav Wiklund, who I commend with this post. 

From the beginning of the film, with Christina's "Lena" on the lam from who knows what, there is an heir of subtle intrigue, much like hinting at why the chicken crossed the road. We never fully understand why she's running, or from what/whom, but she runs. She runs from demons the entire movie, demons both in her mind and in reality. The premise is that of atypical teen hijinks. A girl's parents leave town for the weekend, she gets bored and decides to become a prostitute for the duration, never really informing her pseudo-mate, "Jan," who is initially upset to the point of violence, but gradually morphs into a lamb for the rest of the story, forever adorning ribbed eggshell turtleneck*. The pimp, who decides to blackmail Lena with nude photographs, is the demon in reality, and a well-acted villain. Everything else is the demon of her thoughts, which are related to the viewing audience as foggy, scary visions of worst-case scenarios. Why does your mind haunt you, Christina? Your fans would like to know. She was no stranger to the seedy side of sex (is there one?), the dark side of erotica, even the silly.

Of the few films of Lindberg's I have been able to sit through (exploitation often has its limits), this one and its director have captured the starlet in her most China Doll glory, with those pout pink lips never fading from the sun it seems, glistening like a lake of blush wine. Her skin is possibly its creamiest, but her bones and soul perhaps most fragile, and Wiklund clearly understands what few before him have about the young actress, exercising her talent, not Cro-Magnonymously focusing on her other "talents." Her breasts are and have always been amazing on camera, coupled with the fact that her gentle heroine is the object of desire in make-believe land, it's no wonder her stardom in the real world skyrocketed. The woman herself is as quiet as her fictitious alter-egos, but just as alluring.

The speaking parts are short but poignant and keep the film from becoming simply a music video for the kick-ass psychedelic blues/jazz soundtrack. The music alone merits buying/renting the film wherever you can...psych! Lindberg's sex sequences, and they are like sequences as opposed to scenes, are brief and enticing, with the aroma of sincere passion, and among the best she's done. There's fucking merit. One gets the notion that Lindberg may stand as the bridge between modern porn and classic exploitation.

*- nearly all of the cast is at one point costumed in a turtleneck.
*b- author claims no ownership of photos represented. This one /\ is from the Christina myspace. 

The Beginning of the End

This is the beginning of the end. The start of a new something that could get lost in the millions of somethings that are already of its flavor, its beastliness, and its somewhat disinterestedness. This undertaking of mine intends to illustrate those who have illustrated, perhaps shedding the world of a skin so tackled by many, and blanket the not-exactly extinct underpinnings of the electronic world of vintage paperback-iana with a new view, a soft, cottony view, which may at times be as rough as military wool. I'd like to call that "-iana" something else, as it is a kind of mouthful that can leave a bitter taste. Sleaze, pulps, juvenilia, the unutterable "adult paperback novels," GGA (something I will try not to do much of, the abbreviating and acronymizing, and will devote another entry to that), dime-store novels, and any other term we have used to pigeonhole a world of literature popular in a way of which we shant dare speak. Trying to determine how to label a movement is tiresome. A movement that began out of necessity for convenience and became an aid in self-pleasure, turned into a monster suited only for the court and its cohorts in orange jumpsuits, developed slowly into a risky venture for the willing shop owner, and finally, now, it sits like so many volumes on the shelves of the perverted, the dirty, the unshaven, the man with the cigar in his mouth, the girl with a tattoo just under her collarbone, the musician, the nerd, the reader, the art devotee. 

I am breaking a bottle of cheap gin on this boat of pulp, and slipping it a cyanide pill.