Above you see a promo poster for the wacky British sex comedy Girls Come First, which premiered this month in 1975. The movie deals with a rich magazine owner named Hugh Jampton who hires a debt-wracked artist played by hunky ex-physique model John Hamill to paint nude portraits of the hostesses that work at the Swinger Club, which Jampton owns. This is a short film, only about forty-five minutes, so that’s the entire plot, other than Hamill getting laid. Our main interest in this was determining whether Christina Lindberg is in it. She’s not on any cast lists you find online, but she’s right in the middle of the poster. Could she be in the film but be absent from cast lists? Absolutely. Thanks to the dreaded internet replication error, she’s listed everywhere as appearing in 1974’s Teenage Playmates, which she doesn’t, so we wouldn’t be surprised if she isn’t credited for a movie she’s actually in. So we took a detailed look and we can say without doubt that—like technical values, genuine laughs, acting ability, and a sense of shame—Lindberg is nowhere to be found here. The producers obviously figured she’d make a great addition to the poster and borrowed her for that purpose.
After getting over that disappointment, we noticed British-Chinese actor Burt Kwouk playing Jampton’s chauffeur. His presence is worth mentioning because, in a way, he’s a film icon, a sort of symbolic stand-in for stereotyped Asian characters in cinema. He played the bumbling Cato in four Pink Panther films, and here he plays a bumbler named—wait for it—Sashimi. Can you imagine? Kwouk personified the dilemma confronting all actors, but particularly actors of color, throughout film history. In the real world a paycheck is nothing to sneeze at, but the resulting work survives for future generations to ridicule and/or revile. Kwouk said in 1981 about the parts he played, “If I don’t do it, someone else will. So why don’t I go in, get some money, and try to elevate it a bit, if I can?” If Kwouk’s work was the elevated version you’ll break into a cold sweat imagining what his roles could have been like. In any case, we’ve solved the Lindberg mystery, and now we’ll move on. Below are a couple of shots of Hamill and Longhurst for your pleasure.
