The Seduction of Inga is a direct sequel to its soft-porn predecessor from three years before, 1968’s Inga. Its main claim to fame these days is that it contains music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, aka the two guys from Abba. It’s rumoured that Björn was also offered a role in the film, but his wife at the time, Agnetha (the blonde one from Abba), said no.
Which role would that have been? Probably that of Rolf, here played by Tommy Blom. He’s a musician who lives in the same rooming house as sad, lonely Inga. Rolf would dearly like to get in Inga’s pants though she’s so distracted by her boyfriend’s absence that she doesn’t give Rolf much thought. And then a rich writer called Stig (Lennart Lindberg) comes on the scene and Rolf is left behind as Inga goes off with him, though the book Stig’s writing, about a guy infatuated with a woman young enough to be his daughter, raises any number of red flags.
The original Swedish title is Någon att älska – literally Someone to Love – and hints at this film’s ambition to be more than just soft porn. Onetime ballerina for the Swedish Royal Opera Marie Liljedahl makes much of very little. There are lunges at Bergmanesque sadness, and she infuses Inga with soulful ennui. She also looks good with her clothes off – useful in soft porn.
What, though, does writer/director Joseph Sarno think he’s making here? Porn or drama? Sarno is something of a sexploitation legend, with a CV full full of groanworthy titles like The Erotic Adventures of Bedman and Throbbin, Hung Jury and The Big Pink. Here, his writing has a porn-level directness but his directing is better than that.
Whatever he was up to, by the time Sarno was finished there wasn’t enough sex in the completed film to satisfy the producer, who ordered reshoots – look out for colour shifts and changes in lighting.
Abba fans are not exactly swamped with tunes but the main theme is obviously by Andersson and Ulväus, and there’s a jaunty Hollies-esque pop song midway through, She’s My Kind of Girl, that is also clearly them – crystalline harmonies and descending chords. It was a hit for them in Japan.
Visually it’s one for lovers of the era – blue eyeliner, an orange Porsche 911S Targa, some wild disco dancing, cosmically terrible hairstyles (notably on Lennart Norbäck’s Lothar). Thematically it connects to the bra-burning feminism of the times only in a negative way, through the cautionary figure of Inga, a doormat who doesn’t know what she wants from life but knows it’s a man who’s going to give it to her, whether that’s boyfriend Karl, older man Stig (“successful, mature, sophisticated,” Inga purrs in voiceover), or eventually Rolf – who comes back on the scene as a bit of a white knight.
There is an ick factor, with the revelation that Stig has a daughter with whom he had an incestuous relationship. But that’s soon forgotten once the teasing and naughty Greta (Inger Sundh, rather good) gets down to business with Inga, which is probably what the dirty mac brigade of the 1970s were waiting for.
Is it any good? No. But it’s interesting. Liljedahl has something and should have had more of a career than she did – this is her last starring role in a short run that started with Inga and ended with The Seduction of Inga. A poetic bookending.
The Seduction of Inga – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
