Lea Lander

**Findcandor** · December 11th, 2022, 08:50 AM

.

Porci con la P.38

Days ago, over at the "Lesser Known Italian actresses ~ Vintage" thread, I put up a post on an actress from Rabid Dogs (1974), cast by the great Mario Bava as the unlucky friend of the female protagonist who was, as I wrote, "played by the marvelous German actress, Lea Lander, who has never been covered in Vintage Erotica Forum, aside from her name being dropped in cast listings, and I intend to uncover her." Looks like the time has come for the unveiling.

Lea Lander was born in 1936 in Berlin, Germany, and as you may see from her filmography, began her screen career with a whimper in her native land, uncredited in her first film from 1958. In 1959, she was credited in her next role, as Lea Krüger, which was her birth name according to this site (that has basically copied her Wikipedia page, a site that provides information by the most persistent, and therefore cannot be trusted for accuracy). It is also reported that she is a cousin of Hardy Krüger, an actor who became a star outside of Germany.

Hardy Krüger with Richard Attenborough
in The Flight of the Phoenix (1965). "In
spite of heavy anti-German sentiment in
the West, Hardy’s rugged good looks made
him an international favorite," as phrased
on this site. Krüger died earlier this year.

Alas, online information on the lady's personal life is scarce, but I would say it makes sense for her to have been born with the Krüger name, given the family connection. (I'm making a point of this, because the only tidbit that is offered on the actress' IMDb bio page is that "on her agent's advice, she went by the name Lea Kruger" in order to capitalize on Hardy's success, but that implies she was born as Lea Lander.)

At any rate, 1959 was her last screen role (for the time being at least) in Germany. She then took a giant four year break, a considerable gap for a "sexy" actress in the prime of her twenties. When she returned, it was for a role in an Italian sword and sandal film.

While Lea is not in the image above, she
must have been dressed similarly in this
"peplum" film of hers, Goliath and the
Rebel Slave (1964).

This is when she must have made the move to Italy, for whatever reason. (I know the Italians were churning them out, but the German film industry was not inactive either; one may only speculate.) This was smart in retrospect, because she was much in demand in Italian cinema (and maybe the same success could have proven to be elusive in Germany, or elsewhere), and I don't see a single non-Italian film or TV credit until she left the business in 1978 (and her swan song role was one where she removed her clothing, too). She may have concluded at age forty-two that the offers may begin to diminish, and thus it was time to hang it up.

She did return for one last hurrah in 1992 while playing the head of a convent, in an obscure film inspired by the macabre work of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch; at least this one featured a recognizable name in its cast, John Phillip Law. Her prior film from fourteen years ago was Pig With a .38, and this last film was called The Day of the Pig. These films may have helped her bring home some bacon, but they weren't the best examples of Lea's living high on the hog.

After her sword and sandal picture, she had the good fortune to be cast by the superb cinema artist Mario Bava, in Blood and Black Lace (1964) (and it may be no coincidence that the other film Lea is best remembered for was Bava's Rabid Dogs; the director likely remembered Lea from the earlier work, which probably led to the lead role in the later film).

Following the success of Bava's Black Sunday and Black Sabbath, Blood and Black Lace is regarded in some quarters as the first "real" giallo (violent Italian crime thriller). The film's title in Italian is Sei donne per l'assassino ("Six Women for the Killer"), and begins as a whodunit, where most everyone is a suspect. A masked figure targets models in Eva Bartok's fashion agency, and the body count piles up (first victim is Isabella, played by Francesca Ungaro, but there is no motive; the inspector will come to suspect a maniac is on the loose). Tim Lucas, film analyst, suggested a message of the film could be "beauty and its ruination."

.............

Of course, Lea (credited as "Lea Krugher," the final time she would be using the last name of "Krüger"; maybe she figured what was the point in continuing with this name, if they were going to misspell it) was cast as one of the glamorous models. At twenty-seven or twenty-eight-years of age, this was a "babe" role for her. She would be thought of as a babe in her later films too, naturally (the next year she was in Fellini's "masterpiece," Juliet of the Spirits, as a pretty party guest), but there is something "harsh" about her appearance, and this aura came to be more evident as she got older.

For example, the first time I learned about the actress was through Rabid Dogs, and she had the kind of face that is out of the ordinary. I thought it to be very striking and sexy (I was quite drawn, in fact), but the features to be expected of a classical beauty are not present.

The film regards three criminals who kidnap Lea and a man to help them make a getaway from a heist. When the producer went bankrupt, many years later it was Lea Lander who rescued the movie from courtroom oblivion (it was released in the late 1990s), and since many regard the movie as an excellent work (with masterful tension), Lea performed a grand service for the cause of cinema.

...

In the same year of 1974, Lea had a small role in the horror movie, The Antichrist, as seen above with Carla Gravina (who has a VEF thread, and we may be happy to learn Carla has consented to bare herself on film, as well), the paralyzed aristocrat who is possessed by the devil; this is a quality production that capitalizes on the success of The Exorcist. The second photo above is of the actress as she appeared in Dove vai tutta nuda?, or "Where Are You Going All Naked?" (1969); Lea had the role of the "President's Wife" in this farce, and I have a feeling she was not among the ones who were naked. (I'm guessing the film's stylist who came up with that hair may have been a fan of Harpo Marx.)

In the photo above, she is with actor Antonio Sabato (one of the gang members), in 1976's 4 Billion in 4 Minutes (A.K.A. Quelli dell'antirapina- 4 minuti per 4 miliardi); Lea is the wife of a criminal mastermind who concocts an ingenious scheme, which gangster friends carry out (don't get excited; the "4 billion" was in liras, worth about five million dollars at the time... yet still not a bad haul). There are clues pointing to how Lea could be the real brains behind the outfit in this story, and she reportedly engages in several affairs with different men, leaving open the possibility that she allowed for her secrets to be gazed at one more time.

After writing what is above, I wondered whether this obscure film may have been made available online, and indeed someone put up a poor VHS quality version on YouTube; my suspicions proved correct, and the film provided further opportunity to present Lea's intimate charms. Photos directly above and below are snipped from this print.

When I composed this detailed post for another lovely non-Italian actress who made her mark in Italian films, I made reference to: "A good few European nations, at least at one time, produced 'photo novels' (Fotoroman) or comic books with photographs."

This site (the words "blog" and "spot" need to be combined as one word and substituted for INSERT in the link), has put up an example of when (and this may not have been the only time) Lea "acted" in these photo-stories, here up against the popular Euro anti-hero "Killing." These images are from a July 1966 edition of the magazine for Killing, with a story entitled "Dolls and Dollars." Killing reportedly came on board in 1965, and is a merciless criminal who frequently attacks scantily-clad women. (Incidentally, the page's author makes the point that Lea Lander was the actress' "stage name," further confirming that her birth name must have been Krüger.)

Coincidentally, that "detailed post" for the other non-Italian actress referred to a Turkish actor (İrfan Atasoy) who was the hero of an Italian film featuring the actress (1976's Special Squad Shoots on Sight), and while wishing to provide background on "Killing," I learned Atasoy played the superhero pitted against Killing (or "Kilink" in Turkish; that would be the flying caped muscleman on the poster above) in one of the three Turkish "Kilink" films, "Killing in Istanbul," A.K.A. Kilink Istanbul'da. An IMDb commenter ("dbborroughs") wrote, "The film is full of sex and violence and everything that mom said was bad for us," with another ("Squonkamatic") adding, "The women in the film are all agonizingly hot, and Kilink has his way with them like any good movie villain or 11 year old would."

Lea's last film (before she returned as a nun in the 1992 title), as mentioned above, was 1978's Porci con la P.38, or Pig With a .38 (available for downloading on VEF's thread).

In the finale, she's got a gun and knows how to use it.

Set in the world of drug-dealing and prostitution, the story has John, Peter and the sleazy Max as three criminals who get a share of their retiring boss's empire on condition they put up a united front. Then either Max or another assassin whacks the old man (named Olden) and then John bites the bullet as well, while the cop hero (Marc Porel) beats up a lot of people (I guess he would be the title's "pig"). Lea's character has no name, but is an integral part of the story. She is Peter's wife and Max's lover, and waits to see which of the two will persevere, with the winner deserving of her affections.

So Lea took off her clothes in this "last" film of hers (even to the point of offering some pubic hair action, as may be seen above), and we discovered, almost by accident, that she also did so in 1976's 4 Billion in 4 Minutes. She was around forty years old by the end of her screen career, and made the decision to undress repeatedly, while one may only wonder how many times, if at all, she had done the same earlier. Yet the best (that is, the sleaziest) has been saved for last.

In 1977 (a year that was also from the tail end of her career), Lea appeared in Achtung! The Desert Tigers (A.K.A. Kaput Lager - Gli ultimi giorni delle SS, or "The Last Days of the S.S."), playing a poor man's "Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS." (Unlike Ilsa, the real sadist in this film was the camp commander, portrayed by Gordon Mitchell, an imposing actor nicknamed in the industry as "The Bronze Giant.") In the scene where Lea was the most nude (compared to the other times that are known of), she begs the reluctant nurse, played by Agnes Kalpagos (who was in three other Italian Nazisploitation flicks, with another where she was credited being 1976's SS Experiment Love Camp; below is a film where she also displayed her anatomy, from 1977's Black Deep Throat).

Agnes Kalpagos, with Ajita Wilson

What Lea, in her character of Dr. Lessing, begs for is to get whipped; "I want to be your slave," she pleads. Once Nurse Agnes decides to go along, she does so with gusto.

Regarding Pig With a .38, a reviewer with the moniker of "Mole" had these words for the way Lea played her character: "The woman acts coolly, deliberately, quickly, and is a real treat for all lovers of nefarious women... A stone cold and rock hard woman going her way to the end. A female Lee Marvin. Impressive!"

These words may have been directed toward this film's particular role, but from what I've seen, they are relevant for other times the lady was in screen action, in terms of power of presence. Lea Lander is very sexy, but her features are not ordinary; as mentioned, she has a jarring look. Combined with her acting ability, she comes across as a force to be reckoned with. Princess Lea, who is fortunately still with us, has not gotten the attention she deserves (as one may see by how she has been ignored even at Vintage Erotica Forum, for all of these years).

(Gallery View)

.

**ManInMotion#33** · February 20th, 2023, 06:43 PM

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0484586/

Lea Lander is a german actress who has spent almost her entire career in Italian Cinema, cousin of Hardy Krüger, she produced and released in 1998 Bava's "Come cani arrabbiati" unreleased since 1974.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071275/

Quote:

Originally Posted by beutelwolf

**ManInMotion#33** · February 24th, 2023, 10:08 AM

Nat #83 1967

**ManInMotion#33** · February 24th, 2023, 10:23 AM

From my vault :

**ManInMotion#33** · February 28th, 2023, 05:00 PM

Webfind, from an italian photographer :

**ManInMotion#33** · March 3rd, 2023, 10:44 PM

From my vault (2015) a couple of NAT with Lea, but I can't read data, unfortunately I don't have a program that allows me to work on the perspective of the photos...

December 11th, 2022, 08:50 AM	#1
Findcandor Vintage Member Join Date: Jun 2018 Posts: 745 Thanks: 567 Thanked 12,900 Times in 744 Posts	Lea Lander . Porci con la P.38 Days ago, over at the "Lesser Known Italian actresses ~ Vintage" thread, I put up a post on an actress from Rabid Dogs (1974), cast by the great Mario Bava as the unlucky friend of the female protagonist who was, as I wrote, "played by the marvelous German actress, Lea Lander, who has never been covered in Vintage Erotica Forum, aside from her name being dropped in cast listings, and I intend to uncover her." Looks like the time has come for the unveiling. Lea Lander was born in 1936 in Berlin, Germany, and as you may see from her filmography, began her screen career with a whimper in her native land, uncredited in her first film from 1958. In 1959, she was credited in her next role, as Lea Krüger, which was her birth name according to this site (that has basically copied her Wikipedia page, a site that provides information by the most persistent, and therefore cannot be trusted for accuracy). It is also reported that she is a cousin of Hardy Krüger, an actor who became a star outside of Germany. Hardy Krüger with Richard Attenborough in The Flight of the Phoenix (1965). "In spite of heavy anti-German sentiment in the West, Hardy’s rugged good looks made him an international favorite," as phrased on this site. Krüger died earlier this year. Alas, online information on the lady's personal life is scarce, but I would say it makes sense for her to have been born with the Krüger name, given the family connection. (I'm making a point of this, because the only tidbit that is offered on the actress' IMDb bio page is that "on her agent's advice, she went by the name Lea Kruger" in order to capitalize on Hardy's success, but that implies she was born as Lea Lander.) At any rate, 1959 was her last screen role (for the time being at least) in Germany. She then took a giant four year break, a considerable gap for a "sexy" actress in the prime of her twenties. When she returned, it was for a role in an Italian sword and sandal film. While Lea is not in the image above, she must have been dressed similarly in this "peplum" film of hers, Goliath and the Rebel Slave (1964). This is when she must have made the move to Italy, for whatever reason. (I know the Italians were churning them out, but the German film industry was not inactive either; one may only speculate.) This was smart in retrospect, because she was much in demand in Italian cinema (and maybe the same success could have proven to be elusive in Germany, or elsewhere), and I don't see a single non-Italian film or TV credit until she left the business in 1978 (and her swan song role was one where she removed her clothing, too). She may have concluded at age forty-two that the offers may begin to diminish, and thus it was time to hang it up. She did return for one last hurrah in 1992 while playing the head of a convent, in an obscure film inspired by the macabre work of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch; at least this one featured a recognizable name in its cast, John Phillip Law. Her prior film from fourteen years ago was Pig With a .38, and this last film was called The Day of the Pig. These films may have helped her bring home some bacon, but they weren't the best examples of Lea's living high on the hog. After her sword and sandal picture, she had the good fortune to be cast by the superb cinema artist Mario Bava, in Blood and Black Lace (1964) (and it may be no coincidence that the other film Lea is best remembered for was Bava's Rabid Dogs; the director likely remembered Lea from the earlier work, which probably led to the lead role in the later film). Following the success of Bava's Black Sunday and Black Sabbath, Blood and Black Lace is regarded in some quarters as the first "real" giallo (violent Italian crime thriller). The film's title in Italian is Sei donne per l'assassino ("Six Women for the Killer"), and begins as a whodunit, where most everyone is a suspect. A masked figure targets models in Eva Bartok's fashion agency, and the body count piles up (first victim is Isabella, played by Francesca Ungaro, but there is no motive; the inspector will come to suspect a maniac is on the loose). Tim Lucas, film analyst, suggested a message of the film could be "beauty and its ruination." ............. Of course, Lea (credited as "Lea Krugher," the final time she would be using the last name of "Krüger"; maybe she figured what was the point in continuing with this name, if they were going to misspell it) was cast as one of the glamorous models. At twenty-seven or twenty-eight-years of age, this was a "babe" role for her. She would be thought of as a babe in her later films too, naturally (the next year she was in Fellini's "masterpiece," Juliet of the Spirits, as a pretty party guest), but there is something "harsh" about her appearance, and this aura came to be more evident as she got older. For example, the first time I learned about the actress was through Rabid Dogs, and she had the kind of face that is out of the ordinary. I thought it to be very striking and sexy (I was quite drawn, in fact), but the features to be expected of a classical beauty are not present. The film regards three criminals who kidnap Lea and a man to help them make a getaway from a heist. When the producer went bankrupt, many years later it was Lea Lander who rescued the movie from courtroom oblivion (it was released in the late 1990s), and since many regard the movie as an excellent work (with masterful tension), Lea performed a grand service for the cause of cinema. ... In the same year of 1974, Lea had a small role in the horror movie, The Antichrist, as seen above with Carla Gravina (who has a VEF thread, and we may be happy to learn Carla has consented to bare herself on film, as well), the paralyzed aristocrat who is possessed by the devil; this is a quality production that capitalizes on the success of The Exorcist. The second photo above is of the actress as she appeared in Dove vai tutta nuda?, or "Where Are You Going All Naked?" (1969); Lea had the role of the "President's Wife" in this farce, and I have a feeling she was not among the ones who were naked. (I'm guessing the film's stylist who came up with that hair may have been a fan of Harpo Marx.) In the photo above, she is with actor Antonio Sabato (one of the gang members), in 1976's 4 Billion in 4 Minutes (A.K.A. Quelli dell'antirapina- 4 minuti per 4 miliardi); Lea is the wife of a criminal mastermind who concocts an ingenious scheme, which gangster friends carry out (don't get excited; the "4 billion" was in liras, worth about five million dollars at the time... yet still not a bad haul). There are clues pointing to how Lea could be the real brains behind the outfit in this story, and she reportedly engages in several affairs with different men, leaving open the possibility that she allowed for her secrets to be gazed at one more time. After writing what is above, I wondered whether this obscure film may have been made available online, and indeed someone put up a poor VHS quality version on YouTube; my suspicions proved correct, and the film provided further opportunity to present Lea's intimate charms. Photos directly above and below are snipped from this print. When I composed this detailed post for another lovely non-Italian actress who made her mark in Italian films, I made reference to: "A good few European nations, at least at one time, produced 'photo novels' (Fotoroman) or comic books with photographs." This site (the words "blog" and "spot" need to be combined as one word and substituted for INSERT in the link), has put up an example of when (and this may not have been the only time) Lea "acted" in these photo-stories, here up against the popular Euro anti-hero "Killing." These images are from a July 1966 edition of the magazine for Killing, with a story entitled "Dolls and Dollars." Killing reportedly came on board in 1965, and is a merciless criminal who frequently attacks scantily-clad women. (Incidentally, the page's author makes the point that Lea Lander was the actress' "stage name," further confirming that her birth name must have been Krüger.) Coincidentally, that "detailed post" for the other non-Italian actress referred to a Turkish actor (İrfan Atasoy) who was the hero of an Italian film featuring the actress (1976's Special Squad Shoots on Sight), and while wishing to provide background on "Killing," I learned Atasoy played the superhero pitted against Killing (or "Kilink" in Turkish; that would be the flying caped muscleman on the poster above) in one of the three Turkish "Kilink" films, "Killing in Istanbul," A.K.A. Kilink Istanbul'da. An IMDb commenter ("dbborroughs") wrote, "The film is full of sex and violence and everything that mom said was bad for us," with another ("Squonkamatic") adding, "The women in the film are all agonizingly hot, and Kilink has his way with them like any good movie villain or 11 year old would." Lea's last film (before she returned as a nun in the 1992 title), as mentioned above, was 1978's Porci con la P.38, or Pig With a .38 (available for downloading on VEF's thread). In the finale, she's got a gun and knows how to use it. Set in the world of drug-dealing and prostitution, the story has John, Peter and the sleazy Max as three criminals who get a share of their retiring boss's empire on condition they put up a united front. Then either Max or another assassin whacks the old man (named Olden) and then John bites the bullet as well, while the cop hero (Marc Porel) beats up a lot of people (I guess he would be the title's "pig"). Lea's character has no name, but is an integral part of the story. She is Peter's wife and Max's lover, and waits to see which of the two will persevere, with the winner deserving of her affections. So Lea took off her clothes in this "last" film of hers (even to the point of offering some pubic hair action, as may be seen above), and we discovered, almost by accident, that she also did so in 1976's 4 Billion in 4 Minutes. She was around forty years old by the end of her screen career, and made the decision to undress repeatedly, while one may only wonder how many times, if at all, she had done the same earlier. Yet the best (that is, the sleaziest) has been saved for last. In 1977 (a year that was also from the tail end of her career), Lea appeared in Achtung! The Desert Tigers (A.K.A. Kaput Lager - Gli ultimi giorni delle SS, or "The Last Days of the S.S."), playing a poor man's "Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS." (Unlike Ilsa, the real sadist in this film was the camp commander, portrayed by Gordon Mitchell, an imposing actor nicknamed in the industry as "The Bronze Giant.") In the scene where Lea was the most nude (compared to the other times that are known of), she begs the reluctant nurse, played by Agnes Kalpagos (who was in three other Italian Nazisploitation flicks, with another where she was credited being 1976's SS Experiment Love Camp; below is a film where she also displayed her anatomy, from 1977's Black Deep Throat). Agnes Kalpagos, with Ajita Wilson What Lea, in her character of Dr. Lessing, begs for is to get whipped; "I want to be your slave," she pleads. Once Nurse Agnes decides to go along, she does so with gusto. Regarding Pig With a .38, a reviewer with the moniker of "Mole" had these words for the way Lea played her character: "The woman acts coolly, deliberately, quickly, and is a real treat for all lovers of nefarious women... A stone cold and rock hard woman going her way to the end. A female Lee Marvin. Impressive!" These words may have been directed toward this film's particular role, but from what I've seen, they are relevant for other times the lady was in screen action, in terms of power of presence. Lea Lander is very sexy, but her features are not ordinary; as mentioned, she has a jarring look. Combined with her acting ability, she comes across as a force to be reckoned with. Princess Lea, who is fortunately still with us, has not gotten the attention she deserves (as one may see by how she has been ignored even at Vintage Erotica Forum, for all of these years). (Gallery View) . Last edited by Findcandor; December 11th, 2022 at 10:04 AM..

February 24th, 2023, 10:23 AM	#4
ManInMotion#33 Vintage Member Join Date: Mar 2019 Location: North of Decamerontown Posts: 639 Thanks: 15,082 Thanked 7,114 Times in 634 Posts	Lea Lander 3rd From my vault : __________________ I'm made of metal... my circuits gleam I am perpetual, I keep the threads clean I'm elected, electric spy I'm protected electric eye Respect my authority Kendraatje !!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

February 28th, 2023, 05:00 PM	#5
ManInMotion#33 Vintage Member Join Date: Mar 2019 Location: North of Decamerontown Posts: 639 Thanks: 15,082 Thanked 7,114 Times in 634 Posts	Lea the Italian actress Webfind, from an italian photographer : __________________ I'm made of metal... my circuits gleam I am perpetual, I keep the threads clean I'm elected, electric spy I'm protected electric eye Respect my authority Kendraatje !!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

March 3rd, 2023, 10:44 PM	#6
ManInMotion#33 Vintage Member Join Date: Mar 2019 Location: North of Decamerontown Posts: 639 Thanks: 15,082 Thanked 7,114 Times in 634 Posts	Lea NAT From my vault (2015) a couple of NAT with Lea, but I can't read data, unfortunately I don't have a program that allows me to work on the perspective of the photos... __________________ I'm made of metal... my circuits gleam I am perpetual, I keep the threads clean I'm elected, electric spy I'm protected electric eye Respect my authority Kendraatje !!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

February 24th, 2023, 10:08 AM	#3
ManInMotion#33 Vintage Member Join Date: Mar 2019 Location: North of Decamerontown Posts: 639 Thanks: 15,082 Thanked 7,114 Times in 634 Posts	Lea Lander 2nd Nat #83 1967 __________________ I'm made of metal... my circuits gleam I am perpetual, I keep the threads clean I'm elected, electric spy I'm protected electric eye Respect my authority Kendraatje !!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.