Sweden: Heaven and Hell is an Italian Mondo movie about the sexually permissive Swedish lifestyle. Droll narration (provided by Edmund Purdom, the star of Pieces) accompanies uneven scenes of mock titillation, pseudo-anthropology, and allegedly informative documentary sequences (like schoolgirls learning sex education and receiving contraceptives from the government). Most of this stuff is rather ho-hum.
Naturally, the lurid scenes are the most entertaining. One sequence involves a couple who learn they are brother and sister separated at birth and STILL decide to get married. There’s also a quick trip to a nightclub where the headlining act is a topless rock band that I believe are The Ladybirds, the same group from The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield. Other segments include a policewoman who moonlights as a photographer’s model, a club of beautiful women who go skinny-dipping in frozen lakes, a nightclub for women only, and Marie Liljedahl from Inga appears as a woman who is gang raped by bikers. There are also sequences that focus on juvenile delinquents, alcoholics, and drug addicts. If you can’t already guess, these interludes aren’t nearly as much fun as all the sexy stuff. If they cut out all that hellish stuff and just called it Sweden: Heaven and Heaven, it might’ve been a classic.
Directed by Luigi Scattini, Sweden: Heaven and Hell was one of the first wave of films that helped kick off the Swedish erotica craze here in America. As such, it’s pretty tame, and doesn’t feature nearly as much nudity as you might expect. (The most graphic sequence is probably the one that showcases the birth of a baby.) The most memorable thing about the film is the soundtrack, which features the inescapable earworm “Mah-Na Mah-Na” which later was used on Sesame Street! The rest of the incidental music is pretty good too.
Purdom also narrated Scattini’s next pseudo-documentary, Witchcraft ’70.
AKA: Sweden: Heaven or Hell.
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