A brilliant film that helped define a genre

A Brilliant Conflict

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Given that director Mattsson made his name with the ground-breaking Swedish erotic drama ONE SUMMER OF HAPPINESS (1951), it was perhaps inevitable that during the twilight of his career he would return to this theme. The film (distributed in the U.S. by Roger Corman's New World Pictures!) is basically a variation on "Lolita" – with successful married lawyer Franco Nero falling under the spell of a teenage schoolgirl and all but ruing his life for her. What is more, here, the protagonist's wife is herself involved in an affair with a much-younger man; though Mattsson understandably has the young Clare Powney disrobe quite often, he also gives middle-aged Bernice Stegers her share of nude scenes! The temptress of the title comes from an eminent family, so her sudden elopement with Nero leads to an ambitious journalist tracking the couple down to an island retreat – complete with mute servant girl (I thought Jess Franco cornered that particular market?!) – and eventually attempt blackmail; the girl, obviously wiser than her years, seduces and knifes him (twice at one go!) in order to deal with his threat – a befuddled Nero can only contrive to dispose of the body and his personal effects. Ultimately, both elder parties decide to get together again, which the youngsters do not take lightly; Stegers' boyfriend begins hounding her, so she opts to come clean – but somehow Nero never does and pays the price with his life…only, since the death occurs in an apartment separately shared by the clandestine couple and to which the young man also has the key, it is he who is accused of the crime by Christopher Lee (once again playing at upholding law and order)! The latter appears during the very last stages of the film but his presence add some much needed gravitas at that point.To be fair, the film is not devoid of interest throughout – but the tedious plot and sluggish pacing only exacerbates the redundancy of the whole enterprise, while the palpable decline in the quality of movies being offered at this point in time to international stars the likes of Nero and Lee – who had previously appeared together in THE SALAMANDER (1981) – renders it that much sadder to watch! Incidentally, I recall the VHS poster of THE GIRL from one of the magazines dedicated to that home video format I used to pore on in my childhood days

Quite a pleasant surprise. I was intrigued to see this 1987 film helmed by veteran Swedish director, starring Franco Nero and Christopher Lee with a young Clare Powney in the 'Lolita' role, but things did not turn out quite as expected. For one, the direction seems a little wayward, particularly in the early scenes but then Arne Mattsson was almost 80 and for another Christopher Lee doesn't appear till the very end. Things do get going, however, when we reach a very out of the way part of Venice and the story begins to take a series of surprising turns. Lots of sex and nudity and a solid performance from Nero (and a plucky one from Powney) help to make this a most enjoyable viewing.

Excellent for this wonderful actress Sara Key. It s a pity we don t see her any more. Productor and director have to engage her ! we can see her in some famous movies, especially Sylvermannen, Varuhuset, TV serial saw by many people. Actress of theater she still one of the best actress in Sweden. Remember her in "Don Juana"...incredible piece. You know her as an actress from TV-productions and from films as well as performing on the stage. For many the impact of serials like Varuhuset and Rederiet make them easy remember you, but as an actress the work as with Brustna Hjärtan and Strindbergsbarnet is what you hold as precious moments. I work mostly in Stockholm, Sweden, but also travel for interesting work and spend a part of the year in Europe.

If you follow European films at all (especially those from the 60's, 70's, and 80's), you know that a recurring theme across genres is what might be called "the Lolita complex" where an older man falls in love with a much younger, and often underaged, girl usually with tragic consequences. (Sometimes the gender roles are reversed with an adolescent and older woman, but these are usually quite different films). These films are often considered pretty politically-incorrect by today's standards, but they really should not all be tarred with one brush. The most disturbing and offensive of these films (for me, anyway) are, ironically, some of the more arty French films (including the French-American co-production "Pretty Baby") that used actual underage actresses (not just "underage" characters) and contain a lot of "artful" nudity, if usually not graphic sex. The more graphic and more "exploitative" films, on the other hand, may be guilty of indulging in potentially unhealthy fantasies, but since they usually used mature actresses to do so, they are really no more guilty of pedophilia than slasher movies are of mass murder.This ridiculous British/Swedish production definitely falls into this latter category. It is about a married, middle-aged Swedish lawyer who has a love affair with a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl after she offers herself to him for 300 crowns while turning tricks on her lunchbreak! The lawyer is played by Franco Nero, a very charismatic and likable actor, who is about as far from the male scumbags on the modern-day American "To Catch a Predator" reality TV/police stings as you can get. The "girl" meanwhile is played by previously-unknown British actress Claire Pawney. Pawney kind of had a slight, vaguely adolescent body, but her emerging "crow's feet" and "laugh-lines" quickly give away her real age which was closer to twenty five.The plot is also very melodramatic and pretty unbelievable; it kind of reminded me of one my favorite American movies of this kind, "Pretty Poison" with Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins. After the illicit couple are followed to a deserted Italian villa by a scandal-sheet reporter, the young girl reveals herself to be a murderous psychopath. (While there are MANY good reasons, grown men should not have 14-year-old paramours, this is probably a not a very major one). As you might guess, this affair ends pretty badly. Christopher Lee shows up at the end as a police detective, and Bernice Steger has a role as Nero's adulterous wife (for those who prefer more mature women). This movie actually turns out to be pretty fun and pretty damn hard to take too seriously.