Sandra, the Making of a Woman (1970)

Director:

Gary Graver

Writers:

Robert Aiken (writer)
Gary Graver (writer)

Release Date:

30 November 1970 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

How does an 18 year old girl become a 19 year old woman?

Plot:

Sandra, a teenager who lives in the countryside, is brutally abused by her neurotic and alcoholic father...

Plot Keywords:

Lesbian Sex | Female Nudity | Softcore | Sex | Independent Film

Cast

Monica Gayle	...	Sandra
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jean Clark
Uschi Digard	...	Miss Lynn
Crack Laird
Darryl Largo
Bobbie Martin
Ronald Mowry
James Ritter
Bobbie Seasons
Keel Smythe
Eric Stern
Desiree Trayle
Raymond Zona

Also Known As:

Half a Wife (UK) (video title)
I Am Sandra
Sandra (USA) (alternative title)

Runtime:

90 min | Germany:79 min | USA:78 min (DVD-R edition)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Sweden:15 | USA:X | West Germany:18 (Spio-Kommission-X) | Canada:R (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Mini Films

Not very good perhaps, but certainly not lacking in interest value

A small town girl, "Sandra" (Monica Gayle), lives with her drunken, embittered father after her mother has run off with another man. Her father constantly accuses her of all kinds of slutty behavior, and she does her best to prove him right. After her liquored-up pa dies in a car accident (a scene tastefully intercut with "Sandra" in bed pleasuring herself), she decides to run off to San Francisco. She hitches a ride with a transvestite lingerie salesman and has the first of MANY sexual encounters. Her other conquests include a door-to-door make-up saleswoman played by Uschi Digart (you would think one would have to speak English intelligibly to be a saleswoman), a dirt-bag biker who follows her home from a movie and forces himself on her, and two of her employers--one a married man and the other who is also her psychiatrist (and no doubt breaching all of his professional ethics). They all get a nice piece of "Sandy". Of course, this being 1970 it all ends with a groovy "free love" coda.

Gary Graver was a respected cinematographer who actually worked with Orson Welles in his late career, Gallo-pitchman days. He had very bad luck as a director though, finding what little success he did have in this, the softcore porn genre. I didn't like this as much as some of his other softcore stuff like "And When She Was Bad". The cinematography (strangely enough) is pretty unimpressive (but then I saw a pretty lousy print). The editing meanwhile is the kind quick-cut "Easy Rider" style that was big at the time, but I did find it interesting that some of the flashbacks actually turned out to be flash-forwards to the very end of the movie (kind of original I guess).

Monica Gayle is one of my favorite 70's exploitation actresses. She was every bit as sexy as Uschi Digart, Rene Bond, Sharon Kelly, etc., but she was also genuinely pretty. She was never really robbed of any Academy Award nominations, but I did think she was a lot better in "Strawberries Need Rain" and "Switchblade Sisters". But all the acting here is really hampered by the horrid sound. Still, Gayle is always appealing in her tight little birthday suit, and there is some pretty cool footage of San Francisco a few years after the "Summer of Love" (when the serious 70's sleaze was beginning to settle in). This movie is not very good, but certainly not lacking in interest value.