Heinz Hopf Movies

The Girl is 14-year-old Swedish schoolgirl Pat Carlsson (Clare Powney). Though very young, she is also very wise in the ways of the world, thus she has no qualms about offering her sexual services, for a price, to middle-aged attorney John Berg (Franco Nero). Like Humbert Humbert, Berg cannot prevent himself from succumbing to Pat's charms. What starts as an illicit affair, ends in a tangled web of tragedy and duplicity involving blackmail, kidnapping and murder. The Girl switches moods so often that it seems like three different films cobbled together. Though hardly a model of restraint, the film is surprisingly prudish when it comes to nudity: still, this is not a film for the easily offended. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though he made allusions to his own life in all of his films, Fanny and Alexander was the first overtly autobiographical film by Ingmar Bergman. Taking his time throughout (188 minutes to be exact), Bergman recreates several episodes from his youth, using as conduits the fictional Ekdahl family. Alexander, the director's alter ego, is first seen at age 10 at a joyous and informal Christmas gathering of relatives and servants. Fanny is Alexander's sister; both suffer an emotional shakedown when their recently-widowed mother (Ewa Froling) marries a cold and distant minister. Stripped of their creature comforts and relaxed family atmosphere, Fanny and Alexander suddenly find their childhood unendurable. The kids' grandmother (Gunn Wallgren) "kidnaps" Fanny and Alexander for the purpose of showering them with the first kindness and affection that they've had since their father's death. This "purge" of the darker elements of Fanny and Alexander's existence is accomplished at the unintentional (but applaudable) cost of the hated stepfather's life. Ingmar Bergman insisted that Fanny and Alexander, originally a multipart television series pared down to feature-film length, represented his final theatrical film, though within a year after its release he was busy with several additional Swedish TV projects, and his final work, the 2003 Saraband (also produced for Swedish television), eventually received global theatrical distribution. Oscars went to Fanny and Alexander for Best Foreign Film, Best Cinematography (Sven Nykvist), Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After being raped as a child by a greasy derelict, Madeleine (Christina Lindberg) is left mute. Fifteen years later, she has grown into a beautiful, but very traumatized young woman. After missing her bus one day, Madeleine is picked up by a smooth-talking man named Tony Dill (Heinz Hopf), who hooks her on heroin and forces her into prostitution, slicing one of her eyeballs out with a scalpel in graphic detail (Lindberg claims director Bo A. Vibenius used a real corpse) when she revolts. When Madeleine's parents commit suicide, she snaps, and begins training in karate, stunt driving, and shooting, biding her time for a violent revenge. That's when the shocks really begin, particularly in the original version, which is 15 minutes longer than the truncated print released by American-International. Lindberg suffered similar travails in Gustav Wiklund's smarmy (but less explicit) Exponerad three years earlier. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Director Gustav Wiklund absconded with much of the cast of Kyrkoherden (for which he served as assistant director) for this tawdry exploitation roughie released the same year. Christina Lindberg, the beautiful and perpetually victimized star of Thriller -- en Grym Film and Wiklund's later Saengkamrater, stars as Lena, who hitchhikes home from a party only to find herself abducted by sex-crazed perverts. They rape her and force her to pose for pornographic photos until she finally gets away, leaving the obligatory carnage in her wake. The lurid American ad campaign, which trumpeted that the film was "banned in 27 countries" and had to wait for "the permissive 1970s" to be released, is actually far more entertaining than the film. Janne "Loffe" Carlsson, who plays a sadistic psychopath here, went on to mainstream films like The Battle of Sweden. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

This dark and extremely grim Swedish drama is set at the end of the 19th century and centers upon an imprisoned woman awaiting her execution. Her story is told via flashback. The trouble began when she and her son were tried for murder and incest. Before the trial, rumors were spread about the scandalous relationship. To quell them, the son married another woman. Unfortunately, the young man was impotent and unable to consummate the marriage. The bride tried to force the issue and the enraged fellow beat her unconscious, and his mother then strangled her to death. The mother then tricked her son into confessing to the murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This erotic murder mystery finds a wealthy old man despised by his family. When he is murdered, the disinherited family members are the prime suspects. The main focus of the film is Lotte Tarp, who appears in various states of undress and makes love in a few scene that have little to do with the plot. The film seems to suffer from bad editing and dubbing, with the nudity being one of the only redeeming qualities of this disjointed exploitation feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Framed around an idea with great potential, this routine melodrama by Swedish director Arne Sucksdorff does not quite live up to its central concept. Gote (Tomas Bolne) is a young teen who seems to be at odds with his family and may not know his own mind that well either. Discontented and rebellious, Gote joins up with two mean-spirited game poachers in spite of the fact that he loves animals and nature. This contradiction between his own feelings and his need to rebel reaches a climax when a forest ranger starts to track down the young men in ever-tightening circles. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide