During the production of this film, director
Ernst Johansen lured four underage actresses into sex. The assaults took place in one or more apartments in Copenhagen, far away from the filming in the Viking village near Risby. The young actresses were seduced one by one with booze and promises of a golden future in the film industry. The deception was discovered when the girls talked to each other and found out that Johansen had given them all the same treatment and promised them roles in upcoming films. The girls were very upset but they waited to go to the police because there were only a few weeks left of the shoot. Only when one of them,
Anne Jørgensen, took her own life, the police got on the trail of Johansen.
In March 1981, the director was sentenced to eight months in prison for intercourse with four girls under the age of fifteen.
In March 2018, five women and former child actors appeared in the Danish TV2 documentary 'De misbrugte filmbörn' with accusations of sexual abuse committed by Ernst Johansen. Among them,
Susanne Storm,
Stine Olsen and
Janni Olson.
Storm was 14 when she got a bigger role in this film and just before filming began, Johansen invited her to his apartment so they could "talk about the role". He asked her to act out a scene where she had to masturbate, then he suggests a scene in the bedroom. "But then what happens is that out of nowhere he suddenly has no clothes on and he rapes me. He performs a consummated sexual intercourse. And I was shocked. Completely shocked," Storm said.
