Dagmar’s Hot Pants, Inc. (1971)

Softcore sex comedy Dagmar’s Hot Pants, Inc. was produced by a consortium of American, Danish, and Swedish companies, filmed in English, and released stateside with an X-rating. Weirdly, the film later became part of the MGM library (primarily, it appears, for streaming purposes), so that means in two different decades, American movie executives thought American audiences wanted to see this thing. Such is and was the mysterious power of the porno-chic period, or else why would a disposable 1971 skin flick remain available for viewing in 2018? Oh, well. Dagmar (Diana Kjaer) is a Copenhagen prostitute about to quit the business, so the movie tracks her frenetic final day as a working girl. Between making arrangements to sell her apartment and relocate, she services several clients, doing everything from deflowering a shy young man to enduring the overzealous ministrations of a chubby orchestra conductor. Despite a few meager attempts at character development, this is strictly lightweight fare for the heavy-breathing crowd. To give a sense of what the movie offers, the wittiest scene features Dagmar calling fellow hookers for help with a busy schedule, only to get polite refusals from one girl who says “I’m just too beat” (while getting whipped), from another who says “I’m all tied up” (while she’s actually bound), from a third who says “I’m dead tired” (while screwing inside a coffin), and so on. Just as Kjaer’s confident portrayal suggests she could have handled real dramatic scenes, the almost-imaginative comic bits suggest cowriter/director Vernon P. Becker could have edged further into outright farce. Instead, they made tepid smut.

Dagmar’s Hot Pants, Inc.: LAME