Original subtitles

This is the saga of a film lover.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who loved films

most of all in his life,

but the love was not returned.

He saw his first movie in 1947, when he was just 4 years old.

It was about elephants in India and a tiger.

Extremely exciting.

Growing up, he spent every Sunday at the movies.

One, two, three movies a Sunday.

In high school, he wrote exam work about motion picture history

and political film influence, like Triumph of the Will,

Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda masterpiece for the despicable Hitler regime.

Never make the mistake to underestimate the power of a good film.

After joining the army working as a sergeant

with a tank squadron,

he still had his mind set on film.

The Film Lover applied to the Swedish film school,

was tested for two weeks,

and then, "Hurrah!"

The Film Lover was accepted as the youngest ever to join

the film school.

Only 21 years old.

Now, things started moving fast.

Film school and then assistant to mega star

film director Ingmar Bergman as unit manager

on Persona and Hour of the Wolf.

He worked as production manager for other feature films,

but then the Film Lover sat down and wrote his first feature film himself.

A heartfelt, poetic children's film with a Beethoven soundtrack.

How Marie Met Fredrik got positive reviews,

represented Sweden at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain,

but flopped totally financially, and our Film Lover was broke.

He had to repair his finances.

Now having responsibility for a family, he had to figure out what to do.

Our Film Lover genius decided to write the most commercial film ever written

with no limits.

The film was written in three days and nights on an old typewriter.

Those were the days before computers.

Our young Film Lover's fingers were actually bleeding

after those three days, from not only mental

but also physical strain.

Film lover was now working as head of the film department

at a big advertising agency,

producing commercials for Saab Automobile.

He secured a loan and used three months of paid overtime to produce Thriller:

A Cruel Picture.

On the 6th of October, 1972, composer Ralph Lundsten...

Who composed the score for Thriller... Had his birthday party.

The day after, the shooting started.

When I read this script, I spontaneously thought

that this was something very different

from what I did earlier.

Because I had thrown away my clothes

and that I got my roles, more or less, for my body, of course,

and I was no driven actor. After a couple of movies,

this was still what I wanted.

I was also a cover girl doing shoots for Penthouse

and Lui and so on.

But I felt that it was movies I thought I wanted to keep on doing.

This was kind of a revenge I could do on the other movies

I had done.

Because this one was so very different.

And I did not really reflect over the fact that it was violent,

black and dark.

I just thought that this role suits me great.

Because it reminded me a bit of myself and my own life experiences.

I felt at home in the role and what Vibenius also had noted

is that I am pretty lousy at lines.

Therefore, he made this girl mute in the movie.

That was good for me, because then you took away that obstacle,

so I could set focus on the physical acting.

That I by now was very good at.

I do not think he wrote this role for me.

Why he chose me, I think, depends on

that I by this time was very famous.

After all, I was the most famous cover girl in Sweden.

I had also done Rötmanad,

a movie with one of that time's most famous directors,

Janne Haldoff.

He created my role in a very ingenious way, I think.

He let me practice karate.

I learned about weapon handling and driving,

because I did not have a driving license at this time.

In some way, I floated into the role in a very natural way

and good way.

I became Madeleine or Frigga, that was her name at a later time.

Christina Lindberg had been trained for her fights by stunt coordinator

Lars Lundgren for two months before shooting.

The thing that I was going to be one-eyed for most of the movie

made me walk with this patch.

Not out around people, but at home, I always had the patch

on to get used to the distance control

that gets when you got a patch on your eye.

Hi, my name is Bo Sunnefeldt, and I'm a fairly new 75 year-old.

In late autumn 1972... that is almost a half a centrury ago...

I participated in the recording of the movie Thriller.

That I ended up there was because I was a part of Sweden's

first stuntman group, called Action Man Stunt Team.

Lead by a guy named Jan Kreigsman.

Jan was very innovative

and saw a space for stuntmen in TV and movie production in Sweden.

When it comes to the movie Thriller,

the idea was that Frigga was going to shoot me with a shotgun.

So the audience would really get chills.

In different stunt scenes, we used a high speed camera.

Which means you can film everything in ultra rapid.

The fight sequences were shot in 3,000 frames per second.

The normal action is 24 frames per second.

This super slow motion was shot and created with cameras unique

for that time.

The same ones used by Swedish intelligence forces filming experiments

with missiles.

I just knew my part In this,

I had no clue on the story in general.

I come there in the morning and meet the guys of the film making.

They say, "We want you to stay up there and get shot by Frigga,

and you fall down here."

It was a concrete floor.

I figured it was about six meters high.

They probably saw that I was a bit pale on my nose.

So they said, "Don't worry, we built it up with empty cartons,”

and he held up his hand like this.

It was over two meters high.

"So come back in an hour or so and it will be done."

When I came there I saw that it was not like that,

but it was like this.

And you did not want to show you were weak,

but she probably saw I was a bit pensive.

Then they said, "Sorry, we were out of cartons."

Okay.

I was quite alone as a stuntman in Sweden.

It was me first, then it became Jan Kreigsman and me,

and after that, Dan Linde came as well.

It was only the three of us, so there were not many to choose from for Bo.

I was not so satisfied afterwards, because I thought it looked so unreal

when you walked around in super slow motion.

Then it came out a long snake with blood from the mouth.

So it took forever before you hit the ground.

I thought it was almost excessive, but that's a matter of taste.

The film team was very small,

with young Film Lover as director and producer, plus eleven people,

including the sound effects guy.

This was the second film in film history to be shot

in the Swedish super 16mm format

with a modified A a ton camera.

The whole film, with extremely short shooting time,

editing at night time, and music produced during weekends,

was produced in 78 days from the first day of shooting

'til the final sound mix, and for less than 40,000 US dollars.

The blow up from 16mm to 35mm was done

in January 1973.

Heinz Hopf was great in the film.

He was often typecast as the bad guy, though.

There you go, little cutie.

So, here is how it looks.

You became addicted to heroin,

and not just any amphetamine,

it's the hardest drug that exists.

You have become both physically and mentally dependent.

If you don't get your dose, you die within 48 hours.

But we are not getting into trouble, right?

If you just do as I say, I will get you your two injections a day.

The third movie I did during my career,

I played against Heinz Hopf, and Heinz Hopf was actually -

a very upbeat dramatist at that time.

A very reputable actor. But then he had a villanious look, which fit very well,

especially in Thriller.

So that part was written for him.

Heinz and I came along very well and I think he

was an amazing person.

He was a good support when I made Thriller,

because I did not feel I had that support in Vibenius.

Christina Lindberg was very professional and the best actress Film Lover

ever worked with.

She did a great job in the film,

portraying a beautiful and strong woman

who finally overcomes her captors without becoming evil.

Christina was driving an original Swedish police car,

with sirens and blue flashing lights on, all without a license,

which caused some trouble.

The thing that was a bit typical for this movie

was that he did not cancel the scenes

we filmed at, but all of a sudden people

on the streets or any other place could

simply be at our recording location.

I especially remember one time...

We were filming outside Drottningholm, a castle just outside of Stockholm,

and it was a scene where I was going to slide with the police car

in a parking lot towards a small, narrow avenue.

The photographer had laid down on the ground,

just where I was going to stop the car. I guess I was a good driver

at that time, anyhow.

I did not run him over.

Me, in a full uniform with a black coat,

the gunshot, the patch on my eye,

my whole outfit in the movie. I drive forward, stop,

slams open the doors and take my gunshot pointing in this narrow avenue.

I was not going to shoot, just point.

When I take down my gun, I see people running for their lives.

People really ran for their lives, and of course,

they see this Thriller character coming.

That must have been frightening.

So I understand why people were running for their lives, really.

Then that scene was ready.

After a few days, they called from the Police Authority in Stockholm.

They say they want me to come by the police station,

because you have been reported for illegal threats.

I walked up there, actually had to do it by myself.

You could expect that Vibenius

maybe could come with me and support me a bit at that time.

I was not so old and it was a bit of a hard situation.

I tried to explain to them what it was about and told them.

They actually accepted it and the indictment was dropped.

Back at that time, I was driving car racing

and they asked me if I could help them drive there,

because they were not good drivers in that matter.

And I said yes to that.

I was driving a red Opel

that would crash and I was going to drive into a mountain.

I could not brake,

because you did not want the brake lights to be seen,

so I drove pretty fast

going into that mountain.

All my senses wanted me to go away

and it was really hard to refrain.

Then it hit hard when I drove into that rocky knoll,

or what to name it.

It hit so hard and this thing came from my subconscious,

"Mother," I said.

It felt like standing behind a horse kicking

you right in your chest.

There were actually several ribs going off, it was a hard bang.

I had a pretty strong seat belt and there were marks.

I had bruises outside my chest and several ribs went off.

To be absolutely clear, I say I was one of the most skilled

in this job you call co-driver,

second driver, map reader, in international racing competitions.

It was my job for years and started at Saab,

and also did some freelancing at other car brands.

Eventually, to end under the greatest successes within the Ford Motor Company.

The two biggest victories were in 1970, London-Mexico,

which was a 2,640 mile long rally through Europe and throughout South America,

where we won with Hannu Mikkola,

a Finlander who later became world champion in rally.

We also won the Safari Rally as the first Europeans in 1972,

also on a Ford Escort.

I have also won with "Karlsson pa taket" with Saab

in Montecarlo rally and came first or second in all international rally,

over the whole world, I can say.

How did you get in contact with Thriller and Vibenius?

It was them contacting me

at Ford and the reason was that I was a celebrity

In the motor world, a motor sport profile.

And what else he saw in me, I think only he can answer that.

But that I had a certain driving habit

after all these thousands of miles in high speed, and participated

in other events where I have been an instructor, even for the police.

It was probably that he saw. Plus, we had access to a car

that would fit in this movie, a Ford Escort Mexico.

It's a bit curious, because we won in '70, this London-Mexico-rally,

so Ford had a model made called Escort Mexico,

which happened to have blue primer and then yellow stripes all around.

An animal grip today.

Very sought for these days.

I remember it was mostly up in the so called Rydbo woods,

von Essens marker.

I remember the place well, a gravel road. And then I remember Christina Lindberg,

who was, of course, a beauty, with great pleasure in every way,

and she was a national celebrity then.

She was a cover girl everywhere, and it was exciting just to meet her,

to be in a movie.

I guess I was used to film through interviews and participated

in and drove in movies for commercial assignments.

But an acting film I had never been commited in.

I did well, I hope, I did what they told me to do and drove

with the car a bit, and maybe with skids

and stuff, for the effects for the film.

Hi, was it you that wanted to learn to produce a bit faster than Svensson?

Half is enough.

Christina has, of course, done many sexy movies,

but she was never a hardcore actress.

Performers from sex shows were used for those shots in Thriller.

I am so insecure at...

First, I became very excited for this offer

about the film,

but I am a bit uncertain if Vibenius

told you about these pornographic clipping scenes.

I'm not sure he did.

At this time, it was quite common

that you had porn clubs where people performed.

Professional people that had intercourse

on stage, in front of people.

And it was a quite common fact in Stockholm, actually,

in the beginning of the 70's, and it was one couple, Romeo and Julia,

that I think was quite ingenious.

Among other things, they drove around with a big American car

on the streets of Stockholm, where it clearly stood "Romeo och Julia."

Anyway, Vibenius included

this couple in the clipping scenes in Thriller.

So it's Romeo and Julia... I guess they had other names...

Who perform these porn scenes simply.

I was not involved in it at all.

Those scenes were intentional from the start,

though they were actually edited out for some territories.

The real uncut edition contains them.

The point of the explicit sex scenes was that the viewers should find them

absolutely disgusting.

They were included to show how degraded Madeleine gets

and the hatred she feels for the man she finally Kills.

When I saw the film after some years, I thought it was damn scary,

repulsive scenes, and it was so pornographic.

I simply thought it was disgusting.

I heard Vibenius told so, too,

that this film was made repulsive

and disgusting for one to understand the actions of Madeleine or Frigga

later. Why she wanted such a dreadful revenge on her perpetrator.

I can actually...

Nowadays, I think these scenes are very justified in the film

for one to understand her acting later.

I think it supplies the film...

It's simply great for the film, you understand it better.

This eye thing has been discussed a lot,

if it's on a real human being or not,

and I try to keep to the version

that I heard when we were filming.

Some people were there when the scalpel was stuck into the eye.

What I heard back then was that Vibenius thought

a doctor at one of Stockholm's bigger hospitals,

Karolinska, and that they just got in a young girl who had committed suicide.

Vibenius and this doctor agreed that they would

record this scene during the night at the hospital,

which was also done.

This young girl got make-up around her eye

and they put a scalpel in the eye.

That is the version I heard back then,

which I later also got confirmed by a reliable person

who was at the recording place when it was done.

Film Lover used the pseudonym Alex Fridolinski for this film.

Bo A. Vibenius was the man who won Gold and Silver Lions in Cannes

for his Saab commercials, and was the director

of How Marie Met Fredrik.

He has many windows in his soul

and the darkest one is called Alex Fridolinski.

The film was produced with extreme erotic inserts

with the intention to get banned,

but instead, it got stopped because of the extreme acts of violence.

The film got completely banned by the Swedish board of censors

on April 4, 1973.

According to the censorship card, the film is, and I quote,

"coarsening and harmfully arousing."

Thriller was first screened at the Cannes International Film Festival

in May 1973.

Our now not so young Film Lover

got a Volvo on loan from the Volvo Gothenburg factory,

drove to the French riviera and rented a flat in Cannes.

The success in Cannes was in great part due to the marketing,

which, for it's time, was different and highly effective.

With the help of the headline "Swedish Thriller totally banned"

in Swedish and international newspapers,

we created the advertising profile for the launch in Cannes.

All the eye patches available in Scandinavia were bought,

11,700 of them,

with a Thriller sticker on each patch.

They were handed out in Cannes at screenings

and in bars at night,

and after four days, there was a huge demand for these eye patches.

They were even sold on the black market.

Two stuntmen from Stockholm were brought down to France.

They had practiced the street fight choreography

with a four meters fall

and a Smith & Wesson revolver with blanks.

We were running on tables and jumping from tables,

and onto a bar counter and trashed everything.

It was balsa wood and breakaway bottles, everything.

It did not last more than maybe four minutes,

then the whole bar was beaten.

It was quite fun to drive,

so I guess it wasn't that bad, because we were out in the sand.

They had built this bar in the sand.

We had gathered a number of journalists and TV teams

for an event on the Croisette, near the beach.

All of a sudden,

two men started arguing about a broad.

A really good fight started with nice punches and falls.

Suddenly, one man pulled out a revolver and shot the other in the chest.

We had loaded the squibs with a little too much blood,

but it was very effective.

The guy who was shot fell over the wall, down on the beach,

crashing on a table.

Everyone rushed down to the beach,

where eye patches and special Cannes brochures

were handed out.

Thanks to the special promotion, the film was the talk of the film festival,

almost causing riots outside the cinema where it was screened.

Film Lover had brought a color TV and a video player,

the first VCR available in Sweden, to Cannes.

The film was shown day and night to international distributors.

This was the first time a film was screened to distributors

on video in Cannes.

One morning, at 7:30,

when 99.9 percent of all people at the Cannes Film Festival

are sleeping at that time...

Usually with a bad hangover - -

Sam Arkoff at American International Pictures

walked in,

saw the film,

gave the best bid and bought the world rights for theatrical distribution.

When the film opened in the USA,

it was screened in 12 movie theaters in New York alone.

No other Swedish film has ever achieved that.

Unfortunately, AIP didn't distribute the original version of the movie.

They made a new version

22 minutes shorter then the original.

This version was number 16 on Variety's US list of top grossing films

on June 19, 1974,

grossing even more that week than Five Easy Pieces

and The Last Picture Show.

Film Lover found a new, exciting project,

together with composer Ralph Lundsten.

A Nordic film ballet opera saga,

called Johannes and the Lady of the Forest.

The American producer Roger Corman

got on board and secured American film distribution and half the budget.

Film Lover just needed to get the project approved by the Swedish Film Board,

but a very famous actor, who also happened to be on the board,

approved a film of his own

and left our Film Lover with a crew but no film to shoot.

What to do, if not another banned film,

Breaking Point.

Written in two days, shooting started on the third.

Film Lover holds the European record,

outside of the former Communist block, of getting two

of his films banned.

Then Vibenius contacted me after a few years,

thinking about doing Thriller

Part 2, and he brought his clothes and something

and wanted to take pictures of me.

I agreed to that, because I thought, why not?

It could be fun to continue filming.

But after that, I actually did not hear from him.

I don't know what happened.

Today our very old Film Lover is sitting on eight,

in his mind, great scripts.

One which is a follow up of Thriller.

The condensed story is Madeleine, aka Frigga from Thriller:

A Cruel Picture,

is hired by the guerrillas in a South American banana republic

to clean up the country from a fascist dictator,

CIA scum and drug barons.

It's a low budget film, to be shot on location in Colombia,

with a budget of 3.2 million US dollars.

Film Lover also has a big budget project,

Russki Vacation, with a budget of 42 million dollars.

It's to be shot in Eastern Europe, probably Bulgaria.

We need a tank company with 5,000 soldiers for a week.

Synopsis and screenplay are available on request.

Another thing that also proves that I really wanted the part

in Thriller was that I barely got paid.

I got 5,000 Swedish crowns

for my performance, plus a small, small, percentage in addition,

as I would get when the film would make a profit.

When he went down to the Cannes festival...

And I really should have been there...

And been in the fight on the beach that they had, -

so by many different private reasons, I was not.

When I said no to that, Vibenius directly canceled

this little, small percentage that I was going to get

from the profit of the film, but then it might not have been so profitable.

I guess it did not matter.

Oddly enough, 43 years after the Cannes premiere of Thriller,

our Film Lover still hasn't gotten his money back on the film.

The Lagerlof law firm got a super contract with AIP

with a superb percentage deal,

but not even a cent was paid out.

Film Lover checked the accounting in the AIP headquarters in LA

and learned a lot.

There had been so many costs.

The whole company had gone on sales trips to South America,

Cannes, et cetera.

Not even breaking even, despite the fact that the film

was on Variety's top grossing list,

and that is why he calls himself Sweden's most screwed film producer.

Thriller is today completely revalued.

At that time, in the '70s, the movie was...

It was before its time in many ways, really.

The film was not analyzed in any way like now in later days.

Then in the beginning, in the '70s, the feminists were very prominent

and aggressive.

It was simply a very aggressive movement.

So that this film, I mean, it did not suit its time.

It was wrong and before

its time, you can say.

Because nowadays, when I travel with it, you meet a lot

of young girls that tell you they are feminists

and pay tribute to this film.

Sometimes, I can think it is weird that this film

Is praised just for the violence in it.

I can see that the strongest message of the film

is that this girl is the avenger.

She is no victim,

she is a strong survivor.

I think that is the main message of the film, actually.

In 2006, Rickard contacted me, because there was going to be a retrospective

in Hollywood and we were going there with some movies.

Then something happened

that did not really work out when it came to funding for this visit,

and then Richard was so advanced,

so he contacted the secretary to Quentin Tarantino,

told about our plans, but one chapter was missing to get us there.

This actually ended in that Quentin Tarantino

paid for my stay, and Klubb Super 8

and some people's stay in Hollywood for a week.

At this time, I did not meet Quentin Tarantino.

We went back and I did not think more about that.

In 2013, Inglourious Basterds was premiering at a cinema in Stockholm.

Quentin Tarantino was also in Stockholm at that moment.

And all of a sudden, my phone rings and people from a film company said,

"Quentin Tarantino wants you to come in to Stockholm,

because he really wants to meet you."

The thing that is a bit comical is that by this moment, I did not know

so much of Quentin Tarantino,

and above all not his films.

I had seen Pulp Fiction,

thought it was a violent but very good movie.

That was the only film I had seen by Quentin Tarantino.

And his persona I did not know much about.

Anyway, I packed my bag full.

I thought he wanted some autographs and pictures,

DVDs and such.

I packed my bag full and went in to Stockholm,

and stepped into the Grand Hotel.

Sat down on a couch in the lobby, waiting.

After a while, Quentin Tarantino comes in and he says,

"Yes, that's exactly like I thought,”

and he hugged me and then we sat down and talked.

I don't really know what we were talking about.

But I think it was probably mostly him that was talking.

I thought, well, maybe I am here because he wants my autograph.

So I put out some pictures and wrote an autograph.

Trying to figure out...

I had made a mushroom video, a mushroom video,

and on that one, I wrote something inventive on and said,

"This I never wrote to anyone else.”

I don't think he was so impressed.

But all of a sudden, he looked at me and said like this,

"Yes, but Christina, you might want my autograph as well?"

Yes, of course, so I took out a DVD of Thriller and there he wrote,

"Thanks for the inspiration,”

and also an American newspaper with an interview,

where he wrote, "I'm your biggest fan."

By then, we wanted to take some pictures together, but he said,

"Yes, but Christina, if you come to the cinema

in a few hours, we could take some pictures outside the cinema instead.”

Yes, then I went forward and he took and put his arm around me,

and he turned in every angle, and I think we stood

there for almost ten minutes.

He made sure everyone was filming, taking pictures,

like it was important for him in some way.

Afterwards, I actually thought that he wanted to give me this in some way,

to tell everyone that okay,

you might not think her films are worth anything,

but I value them highly, and here I stand with Christina Lindberg,

and I stand for it.

That was felt afterwards now when I have seen a lot -

of Quentin Tarantinos films, -

so, I understand to value them in the right way.

Film lovers happy Thriller now get released -

in an uncut restored version all around the world.

It is his final cut.

Love it or hate it, he don't give a damn.