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SWEDISH WILDCATS/NEW YORK WILDCATS
Produced by Vernon Becker
Directed by Joseph Sarno
Written by Vernon Becker and Joseph Sarno
Edited by Lasse Björne (as Bjorn Lassen)
Director of Photography - Ingemar EjveAunt Margaretha - Diana Dors
Susanna - Cia Löwgren
Karen - Solveig Andersson
Peter Borg - Peder KinbergThe two versions of Joseph Sarno's erotic classic SWEDISH WILDCATS are as different as night and day. About all they have in common is the sex. NEW YORK WILDCATS is a far sleazier movie with the emphasis placed solely on the sex. After watching the remake I felt like Ruby Larocca's gynecologist.
SWEDISH WILDCATS has been described as a departure from Sarno's usual fare. I can't comment since I've never screened his other work outside of various trailers contained within the Seduction Cinema Trailer Vaults. What I see is a man who places emphasis on story and character, and uses sex as a form of personal awakening. Not just a sexual awakening as some would have us believe, that implies only a liberation of the libido, but a spiritual or mental awakening where a sense of one's true self is discovered.
In SWEDISH WILDCATS, the journey to enlightenment is traveled by Susanna, a beautiful blonde prostitute with aspirations of becoming a ballerina. She works with her sister Karen at Aunt Margaretha's brothel where each night they display some sort of erotic dance that borders on performance art. Some of the dances are outright stripteases, but others involve intricate bodyart. One sequence is particular, which is the seed for the remake, displays a group of women as feline predators. The implication is a visual pun reducing the women to their genitalia and implying the pussy is always on the hunt for money (ie. for sale).
The original title, EVERY AFTERNOON, refers to Susanna's daily trips away from the brothel. She's free from the confines of her life in sexual servitude and can be anyone she chooses. One afternoon she meets Peter. She tells him she's a fulltime ballerina, and he tells her he's a test pilot. We already know she's lying, but quickly learn that he's lying too. It turns out that he's an accountant for an airfreight shipping company.
The lies reveal the frustrations both people have with their lives and their need for fulfillment. She exists in a passionless world of nightly encounters while longing for something more meaningful and tender. He's the low man on his corporate totem pole and wishes to feel important. Together, through love, they see in each other the chance to live and not merely exist in their tormented worlds.
It's interesting to note the during the course of the movie it's never implied that Peter and Susanna ever consummate their relationship leaving it pure and chaste. This reinforces a notion that sex without love is sex without meaning. You could say that when we discover love, we discover personal enlightenment. Through love with the right partner we can be whoever we want be with safety and security. The film seems to agree with this belief as the film closes and Susanna and Peter continue to live the lies even after the truths have been revealed. Through each other they'll make their future together where their dreams become realities.
Getting as far away from the tender and sweat story as you can is NEW YORK WILDCATS, a Seduction Cinema effort lensed in 2002 featuring Ruby Larocca and Katie Jordan, two woman who haven't worked for the company in years. With no love story to speak of, NYW focuses solely on the sex. SWEDISH WILDCATS featured women dancing and being auctioned off to the highest bidder. NYW takes that premise and stretches it out into a feature. Katie, Ruby, and Misty Mundae all dance in feline-inspired body paint and perform a full-length sex scene. Katie's scene is lesbian where Ruby's is heterosexual.
Comparing the two films reveals how far we've slipped as a society with our regards to sex. With SWEDISH WILDCATS the camera never lingered on the women. It adorned them, revealing all their beauty and curves, like an art student admiring a Rembrandt. With NYW the camera leers like a deviant shoving dollars into a peepshow billslot further reducing women to their genitalia. With SW, sex was the exploitable selling point. With NYW, the sex is the purpose for the movie.
There is a subplot running through NYW that concerns a financial arrangement between John Fedele and Chelsea Mundae, but that's really nothing more than an excuse to get the three dancers together for a mass fondling during the climax, something that's become a hallmark of Seduction Cinema titles and feels borrowed from the hardcore works.
The new DVD from Retro-Seduction Cinema contains both movies as well as an exhaustive trailer vault and a brief interview with Sarno and his wife. I would have preferred a commentary but the comprehensive liner notes do a great service by providing the history of the film. This is Sarno's most collaborative effort, with producer Vernon Becker suggesting some of SWEDISH WILDCATS seedier sequences. It's never explained how much input Sarno had in the restoration of SW, but the print looks fine with only a few imperfections. It's probably the best the movie has looked and years, and definitely a package fans of Grindhouse cinema will want to add to their collection.