Isa Quensel Movies

A widowed woman undergoes a true sexual awakening in this provocative drama. The change comes after her husband of 10 years suddenly dies. During their marriage she never felt a thing during sex. Then she meets a lively Pole and begins an affair. Suddenly she finds herself feeling a great deal, and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this drama set in a Scandinavian hospital in 1915, the individual stories of three pregnant women about to give birth are presented. The women come from a different social classes and have disparate views about the impending births. The middle-class woman married a servant of a wealthy family. She doesn't love her husband, nor does she care much about her child, whom she conceived out of spite. The baby is stillborn, and the woman sheds nary a tear. The second woman became wild and sexually irresponsible after she was seduced as a young woman by a much older man. Dividing her time between modeling and robbery, the woman ends up sleeping with the son of the family the middle-class woman's husband works for. The son is willing to support his bastard provided the wild woman marry his homosexual friend and pretend the child is his. She agrees. The third woman is introverted. As a youth, she had a short-lived lesbian affair in school. She then fell in love with an archaeologist who impregnated her. He refuses to acknowledge the child as his. This enrages the woman who joins a feminist movement and dedicates her life to removing the stigma of having babies out of wedlock. Of the three, she is the only one who really wants her child. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Two Living, One Dead examines the pitfalls of hero worship, and the culpability of the media in fostering misguided adulation. A robbery and murder is committed in a British pub, during which Bill Travers, a friend of the dead man, apparently acts with rare courage. His companion Patrick McGoohan, also apparently, did not lift a finger to help during the holdup. Travers is lauded publicly as a hero, while McGoohan is condemned as a coward. When the truth comes out, Travers is exposed not only for his feet of clay but for his intimate involvement in the fatal incident. Two Living, One Dead is an undeservedly obscure work from a major British director. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Filmed in 1958 and released to US television in 1963, Make Way for Lila is a lively Swedish "mountain" drama. Erika Nemberg plays Lila, who as a foundling was adopted and raised by a Lapland chieftain. Growing to maturity in the frozen Northlands, Lila enjoys an adventuresome existence. Obedient to her adoptive parents, Lila is prepared to settle down and marry the man of their choice--until she falls in love with handsome Joachim Hansen. Hansen turns out to be the better choice when Lila's fiance betrays a sadistic streak. Evocatively photographed by Sven Nykvist, Make Way for Lila was generously distributed by the low-budget American firm of Parade Pictures in the early 1960s, then vanished as if it had never existed. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Future film director Mai Zetterling stars in the Swedish Lek pa Regnbagen (The Rainbow Dilemma). Zetterling plays Vanya, a young woman with more than the usual quota of emotional hang-ups. While attending Stockholm University, Vanya falls in love with much-older (but not that old) Bjoern (Alf Kjellin). It turns out that Bjoern also carries around a great deal of emotional baggage: though crazy about Vanya, he refuses to marry her, remembering the unhappy union of his own parents. The ending is neither happy nor unhappy: the audience is invited to determine the ultimate fates of the protagonists. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi