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November 20, 2012

Schoolgirl Report Volume #9: Mature before Graduation

Schulmadchen-Report 9: Reifeprufung vor dem Abitur
Walter Boos - 1975
Impulse Pictures Region 1 DVD

I'm not going to beat around the bush here. To describe this edition of the Schoolgirl Report series as a soft core sex comedy might raise unwarranted expectations. Not that these films were made for any deep explorations or understandings regarding the subject matter, but both the sex and the comedy are flaccid. For those who deign to snatch a look, the best moment in this film belongs to the fully dressed comic Jurgen Feindt.

For those who read German, or want trust an online translation, Feindt was famous enough to have a Wikipedia entry. I also caught a Youtube line of a comic dance performance. Here, Feindt and Elizabeth Welz portray the parents of one of the girls, the father intent on showing that he can be as hip as any young person. Feindt begins by reading from a book that supposedly has the most up to date slang, before springing into a manic dance, both solo and with Miss Welz who does her best to keep up with him. Feindt's physical comic stylings may remind some of Jerry Lewis, and I mean this as a compliment. The pratfalls are both corny and expressively hilarious. Feindt and Welz later greet their daughter and her boyfriend with big hair wigs and garishly trendy outfits. The scene is a comic gem in a movie that mostly dribbles away much of its comic potential.

The narrative is built around the stories of several schoolgirls, all involved in an accident involving two fast cars, and the copious consumption of schnapps. Two policemen discuss how the children of good families could find themselves in their current predicament. Among the situations are a student who marries and divorces at age 18, finding that marriage gets in the way of sex, a girl whose frigidity was triggered by the sight of a flasher displaying an oversized dildo, and an amorous stepfather who impregnates his lesbian stepdaughter. I'm not sure who would find the misadventures of these overaged schoolgirls titillating. There may be some nostalgic value to the Schoolgirl Report series that I have yet to uncover.

Again, IMDb comes through with a reasonably thorough cast list of the supposedly real life characters. An offscreen narrator intones a few words of serious intent at the conclusion, blaming the lapses of judgment on these changing times. Such moralizing is the equivalent to extolling the nutritional values of a creampuff.

I would have to give Walter Boos and company credit for a cute little visual pun. This involves a man and a woman, each with a single, twitching cheek.

Posted by Peter Nellhaus at November 20, 2012 08:13 AM