One-Sheet of the Week: SMARTIE PANTS (1975)

SCHULMÄDCHEN-REPORT 5: TEIL – WAS ELTERN WIRKLICH WISSEN SOLLTEN / SCHOOLGIRL REPORT 5: WHAT ALL PARENTS SHOULD KNOW (1973)

U.S. release in 1975 as SMARTIE PANTS

One-Sheet of the Week: THE RESORT GIRLS (1973)

URLAUBSREPORT – WORÜBER REISELEITER NICHT SPRECHEN DÜRFEN / HOLIDAYS REPORT / SWEDISH LOVE GAMES / WHAT TOUR GUIDES CAN'T TELL YOU (1971)

U.S. release in 1973 as THE RESORT GIRLS

FRÜHREIFEN-REPORT (1973)

“The percentage of adults corrupting minors who have not yet reached 14 is in the region of 80%. These astounding facts should be made public. It is the goal of this motion picture to present the facts openly.”

I think it’s safe to say that if a softcore sex flick titled 14 AND UNDER opened today at your local multiplex, Chris Hansen would be waiting inside with a Dateline camera crew and a herd of state troopers to have a serious talk with anyone fool enough to be caught holding a ticket. But thirty-plus years ago a West German import with that title played in theaters all over the U.S., and many newspapers ran the eyebrow-raising ad campaign (shown above) in their movie listings alongside Disney and other family-friendly movies. One citizen of Marion, IL voiced her outrage to the Southern Illinoisian in February 1976: "The advertisement in your paper '14 and Under...too young to know better, too old to say no!' showing a young pig-tailed girl through a keyhole was deeply offensive. Children must not be used by your newspaper nor Varsity 2 theatre in this manner for money-making purposes. If we prostitute our children, we are doomed. Likely this ad was accepted without thought in a routine way by your advertisement staff. You need to rethink a policy that allows such an occurrence."

"We are happy when our 14-year-old children speak foreign languages, but we condemn them for discovering sex, self-stimulation and the joys of love,” explains our narrator, who will soon reveal himself onscreen as a badly-dubbed middle-aged man claiming to be a psychologist. “Our morality is two-faced. We turn a blind eye to our children being influenced by licentious magazines, publicity or by provocative dress, but on the other hand, we are shocked when our children fall for temptations. The cry goes up, 'The youth of today is degenerate!’ And yet it is NOT degenerate. It only SEEMS so.”

The degenerates are all behind the scenes on this one, starting with producer Wolf Hartwig and director Ernst Hofbauer, here taking their SCHOOLGIRL REPORT lunacy one detestable step too far. The queasiest of their tasteless collaborations, 14 AND UNDER was unleashed in the U.S. by Atlas Films at the same time they were also peddling THE PASSOVER PLOT and several of Fred Williamson’s Po-Boy productions. By 1977 it was being handled by Burbank International Pictures, a company known for sexy West German imports like SWINGING WIVES, OFFICE GIRLS and BETWEEN THE COVERS.

14 AND UNDER opens with a potentially explosive open-ended case, then slips into the usual episodic Hartwig/Hofbauer “sex report” formula before returning to the first case to inform us of its resolution.

(1) 14-year-old Gisela (Christine von Stratowa) is home alone and enjoying a bath when Walter, the good-looking 30-something business associate of her parents, drops by for a meeting with Gisela’s mother, who is out shopping. Walter decides to wait for her to return. “I’ll go finish my bath,” Gisela tells him, “Help your self to a drink.” Instead, Walter follows her into the bathroom and offers to wash her back. Gisela hands him the washcloth and tells him that her father sometimes washes her back. “It’s nicer being washed by me than by your father,” Walter says, "I'm much gentler so it feels better. Why don’t you call me ‘uncle.’” By the time Gisela’s mother walks in on them a few minutes later, Uncle Walter has ditched the washcloth and is doing everything by hand.

“What will Gisela’s mother do?” the narrator asks over a close-up of the stunned woman’s face as she spies her nude daughter writhing under Walter’s caresses. “As a psychologist for minors I’m often faced with a problem of this nature and I would like to tell you one or two cases from my experience to familiarize you with the problem a little more -- to make you think about this case before you see what Gisela’s mother decided to do.”

(2) Bratty little Charlie -- played by that kid we saw wayyyyy too much of in SCHOOLGIRL REPORT 3 -- constantly interrupts his foxy older sister while she’s having “meetings” behind locked doors with “the insurance man.” To get rid of Charlie for a few hours, the sister gives him a few dollars to go to the movies. When that doesn’t keep him away, the boyfriend offers to pay him ten cents for every beard he sees on the street. The story ends with a lame punchline involving a busload of bearded hippies.

(3) 14-year-old Hans is caught shoplifting a stopwatch and is forced by the storeowner -- the attractive middle-aged Mrs. Yeager -- to sign a confession. Mrs. Yeager then proceeds to call on young Hans every day for sex, sometimes in her own bed while her husband’s at work.

(4) Two young children, Hansey and Rosie, watch their parents have sex through the bedroom keyhole. “Gosh, I’ve never seen a wiggley-woo like that before!” Hansey exclaims.

“And he’s putting it in mama’s pee hole!” Rosie squeals.

“No he’s not, Rosie! He’s putting it in mama’s poo-poo hole! And he’s pushing!”

When the two rascals quote some of the more provocative bedroom talk to their parents that night at dinner (“You were making a noise, and mommy said you were like a stallion!”), the father flips out and starts slapping around the little tykes.

The psychologist, who has been narrating the film up to this point, suddenly appears onscreen to address the audience directly. “That the parents should have a sex life is only natural,” he says, pacing around his office, hands behind his back. “It’s the most natural thing in the world, and it is probable that one day the children will see it happen. But what the parents should never do is to get angry at their children, since children can’t understand what the reason is for their anger.”

(5) Carlo the horndog (Rinaldo Talamonti) corners cute co-worker Annie in the stockroom and starts groping her breasts, calling them “golden apples” and then threatening to pick other types of low-hanging fruit. The sexual harassment is derailed by the arrival of an elderly lady (Rosl Mayr), who helps Annie get revenge on the creepy little Italian.

(6) Edgar, a spoiled rich teen, pressures his sexy twentyish French maid Annette into having sex with him.

(7) The weakest of the three stories -- due more to print damage than the incompetence or tastelessness of the filmmakers -- has three girls in a competition to see who can lose her virginity first. I think that’s what it’s about anyway. Here’s what I managed to catch in between missing frames: Two girls in the woods, completely naked for some unexplained reason, hide behind some bushes to wait for a third girl to show up with the guy she’s supposed to have sex with -- SPLICE -- the two girls are having a lesbian encounter -- SPLICE -- the third girl, named Topsy (Ulrike Butz), shows up with a nervous nerdy type who talks out of the corner of his mouth like Bill Murray in CADDYSHACK, and they start going at it on top of an anthill -- SPLICE -- “There’s a tingling all over my body! Oh, it’s never been like this before!” -- SPLICE -- “Oh my God! I’m covered with ants!” -- SPLICE -- the other two girls are watching them, giggling -- SPLICE -- the nervous nerd mutters something out of the corner of his mouth about getting laid indoors from now on -- CUT TO...

(8) ...a shot of pigtailed Sonja Jeannine milking a cow -- “Rosie is only 13. She’s a country girl. But her daydreams are those of every healthy adolescent.” Her daydreams may be healthy, but everything else about her is pretty friggin' diseased, from selling herself to the local boys for $20 a pop to blowing a shopkeeper for a clothing discount. When the police raid an elderly playboy's estate and find Rosie among the naked young things playing horsie with a bunch of horny octogenarians, it's off to juvie hall for our undesirable little milkmaid.

At the end, as promised, the psychologist informs us of how Gisela's mother handled the bathtub situation. No big surprise here, since this was made by chauvenistic men: mom tiptoes back outside and rings the doorbell to give Gisela and Walter time to clean up and "to avoid a scene," as she puts it to Gisela's outraged father (hey, what was he doing washing his daughter's back anyway?!). A few days later, mother and daughter have a heart-to-heart sex talk over ice cream, while Walter is free to soap up somebody else's 14-year-old daughter.

The VHS from Something Weird Video, wisely deleted from their catalog, runs 61 minutes and is missing at least one complete story that is pictured in the U.S. one-sheet: a woman discovers that her boyfriend's waning sexual interest in her is reignited every time he sees her spank her pre-teen daughter. I can think of two disgusting old German guys who should've been spanked instead.

INTIMATE PLAYMATES (1974)

The blog got a few hundred hits earlier this week for our coverage of THE TEENY BOPPERS, so here's another Ernst Hofbauer masterpiece for all you dirty old men out there. This one was originally titled WENN DIE PRALLEN MÖPSE HÜPFEN, which by my best attempts yields an English translation of -- strap yourselves in -- WHEN THE BOUNCING PUGS HOP. If “möpse” isn’t a German euphemism then I’m afraid at least one story about a bunch of little curly-tailed, wrinkle-faced doggies is absent from the heavily truncated tape we screened here at the Temple. Or else the German-English translators I used were totally wrong. Regardless, I'm now sorry I didn’t assign this review to the Keeper of the Pit, doggone it. *

Framing device for the usual smut show has young stud Peter taking the desirable Annie to his uncle’s apartment, ostensibly to knock boots but instead to subject the increasingly frustrated fräulein to one ribald tale after another. A dentist next door and the nosy, elderly landlady downstairs contribute to the fun. The butchered print that was once available from Alpha Blue Archives (as a 2-on-1 tape with Joe Sarno’s DADDY DARLING) runs a mere 54 minutes, shows plenty of scratches and liver spots and contains only five stories; how many others got chewed up in drive-in projectors over the years is anyone’s guess.

1. Helen, a beautiful virgin, gets tipsy in a nightclub and is swept off her feet by Juan, a smoothie who deflowers her and then splits. After a period of intense depression and promiscuity, as well as a lesbian relationship with her friend Annie, Helen finds true love with Ernest -- a virgin she deflowers.

2. A poor but jolly old man discovers that his granddaughter is planning to marry Tony, the son of the richest man in town, Fritz. Unfortunately, Fritz will only let the girl with the largest dowry marry his son. Tony and the girl’s grandfather steal Fritz’s trousers while he’s sacking some other guy's wife and refuse to return them unless he okays the marriage.

3. Sultry student Ruth has an affair with Fred, her art professor, but ends the relationship when she catches him frolicking in the paint with three nude blondes. She meets George, who is Fred’s son, and they fall in love. Ruth and George marry, but Fred seduces her again and soon she’s sleeping with both father and son.

4. Ennio (Rinaldo Talamonti), who works at the pizzeria, is dating Elsie, a virgin who always tells him “you can knock at the door all you want but you can’t come in!” One night he starts knocking on the door while they’re in her Volkswagon and…well, if I say any more I'll spoil it for you. Talamonti turns up in a number of these Hofbauer pics and the guys who do his English dubbing always crack me up.

5. Last and best story, at least in this abbreviated version, has business partners Horatio and Oskar cheating on their wives with each other’s wives as well as the sexy owner of the local massage parlor.

In the U.S. the film was released as INTIMATE PLAYMATES in 1975 by Hemisphere Pictures and received the company’s usual treatment at the time: all credits were lopped off to avoid easy identification, a new title card was spliced in, and an ad campaign was whipped together with bogus names in the billing block and a photo of an actress who never appears in the actual movie. When Hemisphere president and founder Kane Lynn died and the business fell into the hands of outsiders, Hemisphere vice president Roger Cahn started his own company (SRC Films, Inc.), took control of INTIMATE PLAYMATES and several other movies, and became the exclusive distributor of the SCHULMÄDCHEN REPORT and Erwin Dietrich films in the U.S. SRC continued the practice of releasing softcore imports with interchangeable titles and ad campaigns well into the 1980s. The MPAA site lists NAUGHTY FRESHMEN as an alternate title for INTIMATE PLAYMATES, but SRC also used that as a front for SCHULMÄDCHEN REPORT 11.

* The MILO AND OTIS jokes about pugs and pussies would’ve been flying fast and furry-ous! Heck, maybe I’ll ask him to fetch a copy anyway jest to chew on as a bone-us!

THE TEENY BOPPERS (1970)

"I am a gynecologist. My name is unimportant. It is for this reason that you will not see my face during this film. Yet you will see exactly as I see: these human beings and their problems through the eyes of the doctor who has made this extraordinary document."

If you’re familiar with the wildly successful SCHULMÄDCHEN (SCHOOLGIRL) REPORT series or any of the West German softcore sex “reports” that proliferated during the 1970s, you’ll know what to expect from MÄDCHEN BEIM FRAUENARZT (GIRLS AT THE GYNECOLOGIST) as it follows the same anthology format: half a dozen or more young lovelies reveal their first sexual experiences in nudity-filled flashbacks, sometimes presented under the guise of a serious sociological study but usually just for the filthy leering hell of it. Adequately directed by Ernst Hofbauer, who helmed nine of the original SCHOOLGIRL REPORT movies, GIRLS AT THE GYNECOLOGIST first turned up stateside in 1972 with a self-imposed X rating as TEENAGE SEX REPORT, a Jerry Gross presentation released through his Cinemation Industries. Pic resurfaced with an MPAA rating of R in 1976 under the title THE TEENY BOPPERS, courtesy of the bottom-feeding Beacon Releasing Corporation (the short-lived distribution arm of a Boston-based tax shelter company), sometimes co-billed with SCHOOL GIRL TEMPTATIONS, a repackaging of Massimo Dallamano’s DEVIL IN THE FLESH with Laura Antonelli.

The stories are run-of-the-mill “report” material but Hofbauer breaks from the formula during the wraparound scenes by letting the camera assume the doctor’s POV in the examination room. The young women look at the camera as they converse with the doctor, whose soothing voice is heard but his face never seen. Stirrups and specula aside, the result is more intimate and non-exploitative than if a fifty-something actor had been hired to portray an onscreen gynecologist.

Ulrike (20 years old), a secretary who feels no pleasure while making love to her fiancée, tells the doctor about her first sexual experience: she was 15 and lost her virginity to a young man she met on a train (the deflowering is the film’s most memorable scene and nicely handled by Hofbauer). Ulrike rejects the young man later in favor of masturbation and a lesbian relationship with Inga, an older woman who seduces her during a photo shoot. When Ulrike meets her fiancée and falls in love, he takes her away for a weekend trip and from that point on she’s unable to reach orgasm. The doctor gives her a prescription for medication to ease cramps and encourages her to talk about her condition with her fiancée. “Nature has not placed you precisely in the category of a young woman without complications,” he says before subjecting her to a slideshow about the three different types of physical constitution recognized by medical science.

Brigitte (21 years old) is a beautician who goes on a three week beach vacation in the Canary Islands with a girlfriend, then returns to her fiancée and refuses to have sex with him. The reason: green and yellow vaginal discharge and a burning sensation while urinating. “I’m worried that it’s something contagious,” she tells the doctor with averted eyes, “You know the conditions of toilets at beaches.” (“Toilets -- always the same excuse” the doctor mutters). It’s the clap, of course, and Brigitte caught it from some sleazy guy she met while on vacation. She’s prescribed antibiotics and told to abstain from sexual intercourse for at least three weeks.

Inge (16 years old) is a sexually active high school girl whose period is 5 weeks overdue -- not because of pregnancy but because of nervousness brought on by the fear of becoming pregnant. In order to prescribe birth control pills the doctor needs the consent of Inge’s mother, which leads to an explosive confrontation.

Karin (15½ years old) is brought to the gynecologist by her father, a woefully naïve widower who thinks his little girl is still innocently sucking her thumb and sleeping with teddy bears. Lately she’s become moody, fatigued, runs a temperature, complains of stomach pains… “It’s certainly a cold or something like that” the father says just before he’s led out of the room and his daughter is brought in for an examination. Karin, who’s anything but innocent, believes she contracted gonorrhea from a construction worker, but the diagnosis turns out to be infected fallopian tubes.

Anja (17 years old) was a virgin before she went off to a nearby lake with four bikers to go swimming. The doc examines her at home and then calls for an ambulance to take her to the hospital.

Renate (18 years old) thinks her breasts are too small. The doctor prescribes hormones.

Monika (16 years old) loses her virginity to Tony, a jerk who gets her pregnant and then sends her to a back alley abortionist who nearly kills her. When Tony refuses to visit her in the hospital, Monika tries to kill herself by overdosing on sleeping pills. The good gynecologist reads Tony the riot act (“Even a doctor has the right to get annoyed sometimes!”) and at the end the two young lovers stroll out of the hospital arm-in-arm, leaving the doc with another dozen or so patients to examine.

The VHS from Something Weird, long deleted from their catalog, runs approximately 82 minutes. Print damage is mostly confined to the ends of the reels.