In going through the endless Cinema Retro archives, I came across this lobby card from the 1971 Swedish soft core porn film, Dagmar's Hot Pants and it brought back some misty-eyed memories of my youth. When Dagmar opened, I was a sophmore in high school and my friend and I tried to see it. Alas, an eagle-eyed old lady at the box-office (was there ever anyone but eagle-eyed old ladies manning the boxoffices in those days?) would not let us in because we were not 17 years old. (The film was rated a blazing-hot "R"). Disappointed, we ended up rebelling by going to a grind house on 42nd Street where, as long as you didn't ride up to the boxoffice on a tricycle, you were deemed old enough to see the hardcore shows. We ended up watching the latest "loops" from good old John Holmes (aka Long Johnny Wadd, the screen's greatest swordsman since Errol Flynn). Yet, I've always been haunted by the elusive Dagmar and have long pondered why he was so indelibly associated with the short-lived trend of hot pants. Even more fascinating is that it's a sex-based film starring Robert Strauss - yes, that Robert Strauss - the guy who played Animal in Stalag 17 and who sported a gloriously "lived in" mug that made Rondo Hatton look like Paul Newman. Locating the above lobby card only whetted my appetite even more. It appears to feature an Asian midget in a Swedish sex film starring an aging American character actor. If anyone out there in cyberspace has seen Dagmar's Hot Pants, please let us know more about this Swedish contribution to happier living. If nothing else, we're hooked on the tag line for the film that we found on www.imdb.com
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-Lee Pfeiffer