A bleak tale of a girl’s nightmarish decent into a life of degradation and prostitution. A Danish production of the early 1970s, the film clearly illustrates that Europeans are in no way more “civilized” than garbage-minded Americans. While European hard-core has a reputation for high-gloss and soft-focus, The Blue Balloon proves that Euro-XXX can be as grimy and hard-hitting as our own backstreet variety. If you like a little art with your captivity smut, the obscure Danish import The Blue Balloon should fit the bill. After her husband goes out of a town, Danish sex kitten Lisbeth Olsen winds up getting drugged and raped by a crazy lesbian who turns her into a prostitute by offering her to a succession of tricks. Soon our heroine’s out on the streets soliciting her way towards an ending that’s at least more upbeat than Sweet Charity. This film is from obviously battered prints, but watchable enough. This is the English dubbed version.
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I did not know what to expect from “The Blue Balloon”; the title sounded so silly that I thought it might be a hardcore porn rip-off of “The Blue Lagoon”. I also noted its 53 minute running time and assumed this was a cheap grindhouse-type porn film that played on double features in the early 1970’s. I was correct about the latter but wrong about my first assumption. “The Blue Balloon” was very cheaply made and the soundtrack on the print I saw was so worn it was almost impossible to understand any of the dialog, which is minimal. However, it was not necessary to know what was being said, for the desperate, pathetic facial expressions of the cast told a sordid and harrowing story.
Lisbeth Olsen [The Keyhole] plays a naive young bride who sees her husband off to the military shortly after the wedding. In the airport, while in a moment of terrible depression due to her husband’s leaving, she encounters a seemingly interested woman who buys her a drink and encourages Olsen to discuss her troubles. The latest trouble is that the drink is drugged, and the next thing Olsen knows is she is tied to a bed in a terribly dingy, seedy and claustrophobic room. Olsen’s new evil female “friend” rapes her twice while she is unconscious, and then gets on the phone and calls numerous men over to the pad, who after giving their money to the evil woman proceed to rape and torment Olsen in every way imaginable, all the time the evil woman continues to hook Olsen on drugs. Olsen somehow gets free but is unable to escape her new addictions and takes to the streets and becomes a cheap whore in a downward spiral.
“I could not believe how moved I was by this cheap, highly exploitive film. The story it tells is so similar to the much more popular “Thriller: A Cruel Picture”, but “The Blue Balloon” is much more realistic and grim. Olsen looks pathetic and desperate at every turn and one gets the idea that she is going to drop dead at any moment from drug addiction as she is so gaunt and haunted looking on the screen with her hallow eyes and thin figure. I wanted to help this desperate woman off the screen and get her to a hospital. Christina Lindberg in “Thriller: A Cruel Picture” was put through the same regimen but never lost her fulsome figure or her cute mini-skirts and boots. The men who rape Olsen are also terribly cruel and sadistic and it does not seem for one second that they are acting, as they smile broadly while raping and molesting. I could see a terrible end for Olsen’s character and was dreading the final scene, but I won’t give away the details. So it may be cheap, sordid, and absolutely pornographic, but “The Blue Balloon” is also powerful if minimalist, but in this case minimalist is powerful.” The SWV release of The Blue Balloon contains approximately 20 more minutes of footage than the After Hour Cinema release, though the SWV version is missing the final 12 minutes, which are in the After Hour release. Sound is also better in the SWV version. The full length of the film is approximately 72 minutes.
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The version I saw of this very obscure title, ran roughly 58 minutes, so I’m not sure what is missing from this print. This site lists the original run time of 73 minutes. If plot and story was cut, then I would surely love to see this in it’s full length version. This print here runs 71 minutes, which is much longer than some of the bootlegs out there.
“Blue Balloon” is sleazy, grindhouse porn, to be sure. But the storyline does draw you in, if you let it. This young woman is spotted at the airport, by a truly despicable woman in a wig and dark sunglasses, who pretends to be concerned about the girl’s welfare. Having just said goodbye to her boyfriend as he goes away to the army, she is distraught, and allows herself to be drugged and taken to a seedy apartment. She is kept high on marijuana joints laced with heroin, in order to keep her in line, as she is repeatedly raped by paying male customers. At one point she escapes, but her new addiction keeps her working the streets, until one night a familiar face reappears..
These 1970’s exploit films sometimes have this strange, atmospheric quality, and “Blue Balloon” is certainly one of those. If there was just a little more story, or some more non-sexual scenes, this could have been better. And I suspect that the long version might be just that. Even so, this is a curiosity piece that will be interesting to fans of vintage grindhouse cinema.
Bizarre roughie porn from Sweden has Lisbeth Olsen playing a shy woman who meets a man who she finally gives herself to sexually. The two are eventually married before he gets drafted. Once he’s gone the woman is left alone but is kidnapped by a crazed lesbian who drugs her, ties her up and forces her into prostitution.
The Blue Balloon was pretty much forgotten until it started making the rounds in a shortened version. It became known that the producers of this film also made the notorious The Sinful Dwarf. For the most part this film isn’t horrible but at the same time it’s a long way off from Bergman. I think the film will be of interest to fans of roughies because there’s some rather brutal or should I say unerotic stuff here. The female character is constantly being abused until she gets hooked on everything she’s doing. There’s actually a fairly decent story being told here and while I won’t ruin the ending I will say that it makes an impact. The sex scenes are good for what they are but there’s no doubt that the low-budget really doesn’t help things as everything here is pretty cheaply shot.
http://nitroflare.com/view/5CB0C91F9DA754E/The_Blue_Balloon.1973.Extended_Cut.mkv
Language(s):English
Subtitles:None
