(På engelska, för utrikisk lista. Fråga: har någon singeln med "Vals med Karin"
och kan göra en MP3 eller bistå med texten? --AE)
I have recently written about Swedish sf authors and music, about how Börje
Crona was best buddy and toured with ABBA's manager Stikkan Anderson and how
Sam J Lundwall tackled translating Bob Dylan and also had ABBAs studio
technician Michael Tretow as neighbour, who helped him with recordings (his
King-Kong Blues EP).
Through a friend who sent me a 50 years old magazine article I stumbled upon
how Sam J Lundwall was also involved in an award-winning film, as far away as
Australia even! Sam J had a career as singer/songwriter in the 1960s, doing a
few records. Filksong aficionado Karl-Johan Noren has covered it in much detail
here, in English, and well worth reading:
https://kjn.dreamwidth.org/76969.html?thread=299689
The discography lists not only Sam's own recordings, but also several covers
of Sam J Lundwall songs. His "Födelsedagsfeeten" ("The Birthday Party") has
been recorded by many artists. Note also another ABBA connection! Sam J
translated a song named "Syrtaki", which was then recorded by ABBA's Anni-Frid
Lyngstad.
In 1967 Sam J released the single "Hootenanny-hoo" - I think it was a parody
of ABBA-Björn Ulvaeus' then band Hootenanny Singers - with the B side "Vals med
Karin". And the B side was made into an animated short film directed by one Ola
Lindahl of Coola Film AB (AB means approx "Inc") with photo by Conny Marnelius,
co-founder of the company. It was released in 1968. I contacted the director
who is still around and learned a few things.
"Waltz with Karin", the international title, received a quality grant, he
told me, out of the hands of the film institute director Harry Schein, The
Godfather of Swedish cinema for many decades. That was on the big film gala in
1968 and the amount was SEK 24 000, which should translate to USD 25-50 000 in
today's money, a not insignificant sum!
And more than that. Ola Lindahl writes:
"It recived some awards abroad, eg on Australia's film festival in Melbourne,
it floated around on many film festivals around the world, and was shown on
/Swedish/ TV in many re-runs."
It was shot in Coola Film's animation studio. He doesn't know if a copy of
the film is around (one could try the Film Institute, the Royal Library or
perhaps Swedish TV?) and Swedish Film Database doesn't have much info:
http://www.svenskfilmdatabas.se/sv/item/?type=film&itemid=12771#awards
The length 105 metres should translate to 5-6 minutes.
I googled for the Australian film festival, and found it was shown on the
Melbourne International Film Festival in 1970, a festival known as MIFF:
http://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/festival/1970
Unfortunately, there's not much info about the film:
http://miff.com.au/festival-archive/film/14019
I don't even have the text of Sam J Lundwall's song "Vals med Karin" but Ola
Lindahl sent me a couple of frames from the film. You see an urban landscape
which seems to be drawn with pencil or perhaps crayon. In one picture, the
director holds up a frame from the animation, with a fat, nude woman jumping.
His homepage is at http://www.coolafilm.se/ if you're interested (but it's in
Swedish).
Sam J has himself been involved in filming, as far as I know in 8 mm amateur
format ("Waltz with Karin" was in professional 35 mm). In my Fandboken
fancyclopedia I note that he has "whole or in parts shot or planned (ie not
finished, some might not have been filmed with even a single frame): Hey, Mr
Monster, Story of Starbegotten, From another World /Swedish title "Från en
annan värld"/, The Teleport, Black Magic /Swedish title "Svart magi"/ and This
is Cosmos Club."
Cosmos Club was the name of Sam J Lundwall's sf club when he lived in the
Stockholm suburb of Hägersten in the 1950s. Other titles (like Story of
Starbegotten) indicate that the film was a part of the famous "Fannish War",
the parody war-by-correspondence involving mainly Sam and his friend Dénis
Lindbohm in the 1950's, early 1960's. Sam has mentioned that their "war"
activities involved both films and tape recordings. I don't know how many of
the titles became a finished film, but at least "Hey, Mr Monster" was finished
because it was shown on an sf con in 1959.
All of these films may be lost. When Sam J discontinued most of his
publishing in the 1990 he said that he took a lot of sf-related junk to the
dump and had it burned. If that goes for the films too, I don't know. When I in
the early 1990's did my anthology of Swedish sf fandom films (named
Filmfandom), Sam J didn't reply, and I have a memory of that he has said that
the films no longer exist.
Sam J had professional training as a photographer, BTW, and around the time
for "Waltz with Karin" he became employed by Swedish TV as a producer. As such
he eg did a series of four programs about science fiction, which he later
turned into his book SF - What's It All About, 1971 (Swedish version: SF från
begynnelsen till våra dagar, 1969).
I'll do my best to try to find out more about "Waltz with Karin", the name of
his daughter BTW. Not "Waltz", stupid! Karin.
--Ahrvid
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