Daddy, Darling

At first, Sarno's detached, ironic melodramatic style, which so perfectly fit his exposés of early 60s suburbia, may seem to be sappy and anachronistic in the more free-wheeling late 60s milieu of his Swedish period -- the bland pop music and candy colored photography replacing the expressive jazz and stark b&w of his earlier period. Nonetheless, he was still a master of gradually building psychological tensions to explosive (and often very nasty) climaxes, as is the case here. Thankfully, he resorts to his patented driving bongo music and artful chiaroscuro lighting during the two key erotic/dramatic scenes in this one, undercutting the softness of the earlier sequences. Stick with it and you will be impressed.

Saftig teenage temptress, 'Katja' (Helli Louise) enthusiastically embarks upon a lusty series of sensuously 'mounted' sexcapades in the no less salubrious locale of a sublime-looking Copenhagen, her questionable motivation for all this zesty saturnalia being due to her father's (Ole Wisborg) Stoic rejection of Katja's playful, and somewhat inappropriately erotic advances! Saucy Grindhouse god, Joseph W. Sarno, was certainly no slouch when it came to sprightly, exquisitely stylish, ever-so daring 60s/70s smut-a-rama, having shot the audaciously steamy, sinfully sensational five-fingered flesh-feast, 'Inga' (1968) starring the luridly luscious Jess Franco muse, Marie 'Eugenie' Liljedahl!

Sarno's dreamy delicious 'Daddy, Darling' (1970) isn't quite so much a 'coming-of-age-drama', as 'Coming quite often, mama!!!!', and therefore taking into consideration the notably nubile dimensions of master eroticist, Joseph W. Sarno's vivacious, infrequently clothed starlet, Helli Louise, one can readily appreciate why our canny, exploitation host took this more prurient approach! While 'Daddy, Darling' isn't exactly fine art, perhaps even being a trifle undignified to some, this scurrilously Sapphic 70s sojourn is a far from unsightly celluloid confection, so eager beaver aficionados of both Mr. Sarno's orgiastic oeuvre and the delectably voluptuous topography of hellaciously heavenly Helli Louise are sure to be sweetly seduced by this illicitly enticing trip into the moorishly dew-dappled diorama of ingratiatingly epicurean, soft-core Euro-sleaze, captured by a laudably raunchy, supremely stylish slap n' tickle sensualist of some considerable repute!

"She's 19. She's never been touched." But, of course, by the time this movie is over she's definitely going to be touched A LOT. This movie about a young girl who sexually yearns for her own widower father may seem pretty sleazy to those uninitiated to 70's Euro-exploitation films. Keep in mind though that if this had been an Italian exploitation film of that era, the girl definitely would have had sex with her father (probably in the first reel). Same if it had been a French "art" film of the time except the character (and probably the actress playing her too) would have been about fourteen. So the sleaziness is all pretty relative. But while this is considerably less sordid than it appears on paper, I don't know that I quite buy it as a sensitive coming-of-age story. It's definitely pretty exploitative. The girl certainly has FANTASY sex with her father at least, and after he rebuffs her in real life she moves on to a lot of other people like her best friend's boyfriend. Nor are many of these encounters terribly realistic or believable--she has a three-way at one point with a lesbian painter and a nude model, for instance. And for the piece (of ass) de resistance, she decides to seduce her father's new wife! This jealous-daughter-seducing-her-stepmother-to-be plot was also used in the later Gloria Guida vehicle "Pecatti di Giuventud"--which makes for at least two more times than something like this has probably ever happened in real life.

Like most Joe Sarno movies this visually looks very good at least and the acting is well above average for softcore porn. Sarno always had a very good eye for Scandanavian lovelies like Christina Lindberg ("Swedish Wildcats", "Young Playthings"), Marie Lilljedahl ("Inga", "The Seduction of Inga") and Maria Forse ("Butterflies", "Veil of Blood"). The lead here, Helli Louise, is not quite of the same caliber as those three, but it kinds of works in this movie to have a more average looking girl. She certainly does have the stuff for softcore porn though--like Christina Lindberg she has the combination of a slender, girlish body and very ample breasts that is very rarely found in nature(although pretty common today thanks to surgery). Unlike most of today's plastic surgery disasters though, she was good enough actress to at least convincingly play a virgin (even if she doesn't stay one for very long). This isn't the best Sarno film I've ever seen, but it's certainly worth a gander