DVD: Schoolgirl Report #7: “What the Heart Must Thereby…” / Schulmädchen-Report 7: Doch das Herz muß dabei sein (1974)

May 2, 2011 | By Mark R. Hasan

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Film: Very Good/ DVD Transfer: Very Good/ DVD Extras: n/a

Label: Impulse Pictures / Synapse Films/ Region: 1 (NTSC) / Released: December 14, 2010

Genre: Erotica / Mockumentary

Synopsis: In Part 7, the filmmakers explore what’s lacking in modern German schoolgirls.

Special Features: n/a

Review:

“It is difficult for young people today to integrate into the adult world. It is encouraging that the juvenile authorities in increasing measure understand incorrect behavior and developmental mistakes.”

In the seventh of thirteen entries in the politically incorrect Schoolgirl Report franchise, series auteur Gunther Heller explores sexually delinquent schoolgirls whose arrest at a brothel all stemmed from an over-keen interest in wondering why touching one’s “mooshy” feels so good, and when it’s penetrated by a “cement noodle,” feels even better.

Typical of the series, there’s a bullshit moral intro and outro (see above quote) that’s supposed to wrap up any guilt viewers may have felt in watching a series of just-legal katzen disrobing and engaging in generally silly sexual escapades, but this German variety of sex comedies offered something a little different than its Italian and British competition: the characters often reason, barter, and weigh matters amongst each other before interlocking, and afterwards there’s post-coital moral banter – which isn’t to say the franchise ought to exist, but it seems either Die Deutschen auteuren felt the morality of underage characters self-exploring and participating in adult behaviour required backstories to justify the sexual vignettes… or the whole effort was to keep the censors far away.

Heller’s story offers up the familiar flashback vignettes structure, beginning when little Babsi recounts to a trio of judges why she clocked a John in the nose with her purse at her brother’s brothel.

Was she a Jane? Was she poised to enter his fold? And why are fellow classmates and schoolmates under his employ, earning DM 150.- per “boomst”?

Das ist so unmöglich für einen jungen frau!

As Babsi sits in the court with her accused brother, one of the three judges (who bears an uncanny physical and vocal resemblance to the BBC’s Lyse Doucet) takes over the questioning, and finds the only way to get to the grounds of the brothel’s evils is to point blank ask each Jane when & why she had her cherry popped.

In the case of voluptuous Helga (unbilled Sonja Jeannine), it came von hinter after a shower in the girl’s dressing room; with little Karla, getting boffed was simply part of her quest for greater knowledge, and her cherry popping came after she had studied five books on sex, and hand-picked her father’s business partner – a good choice in the end, because of his 12-inch ‘rammer-slammer.’

During a brief court recess, the complainant (the aforementioned John with the busted nose) converses with some of the parents of the brothel employees, and Heller indulges in tangential vignettes, including an ice cream parlor owner whose bargain of frei eis in exchange for a threesome with high schoolers backfires when his butch wife hunts him down in a hotel; a big-eyed student who schemes to get under the sheets with her teacher when her mother beats him to the punch; and the brothel’s building owner, who recounts the tale of a Prussian teacher’s failure in disciplining a rowdy band of Bavarian students into calming down for their sex ed class.

Not unlike the Dutch and the Italians, Germans know how to have fun with sex in films, and while the concept of the Schulmädchen-Report series ist nicht richtig, the filmmakers used their little niche to elevate the sex comedy genre with striking moments of absurdism and silliness. The naked chase in the hotel is pure French farce, whereas the serious-visaged student who decided to discover sex through her father’s business partner harkens back to early Hollywood romantic comedies, such as Communist Greta Garbo being quite unsure whether a kiss from a Yankee lives up to its inflated Capitalist reputation in Ninotchka (1939). Seriously.

Where things stray into more dramatic (and perhaps Verhoevian) terrain is the lone tale of a zaftig Mädchen who lures older men for a lift and promises them payment in a nearby country cabin, where they’re beaten and robbed by thugs. One of the thugs lets a John almost rape the girl before barging in with his goons, and the vignette maintains a strangely serious edge as a local priest attempts to sway the girl into pressing changes against her ill-minded colleagues.

Director Ernest Hofbauer worked almost exclusiveness in R-rated smut, and he showed a particular adeptness for briskly paced silliness delivered with a fine balance of thespian gravitas. His brand of sex comedy, at least in entry #7, addresses the ridiculousness of adults trying to fend off overheated youth, and he augers the morality of the issue by having older characters chide each other’s stances during the court recess – the result of which reveals each one is almost corrupt in some manner: either the impulse to feed a “mooshy” comes from influential men, or bad parenting; it’s simply not the fault of the girls. Heller’s little drama is supposed to be a cautionary lesson for one and all.

Unlike the tech crew and above the line talent, none of the actors are credited,; the film stars “many anonymous youths and parents,” which is utter qvatch, because most of the women were part of the franchise’s stock company and had appeared in prior entries. In one instance, the actor who plays the uptight Prussian teacher is seen again in a later vignette as a student, seated behind naughty little Gaby.

There are at least three lessons learned from entry #7: German women are a healthy lot, German men have the worst hairstyles within the Europa (circa 1974), and the Germanic nation experience something called orgasmus, which translates into English as ‘an orgasm that must happen.’

Impulse Pictures’ DVD (distributed via Synapse Films) contains a decent transfer with only minor quibbles – namely splice tape at certain break points, and slight shot jitter at the beginning of a few new reels, but it’s a decent looking print with balanced colours. The source print has seen some wear & tear, but the details are clear, and the German soundtrack comes with optional English subtitles that manage to nail most of the colourful German. (Those even semi-fluent in German will find more amusement with Heller’s florid adjectives, particularly in the shower vignette.)

Whereas director Hofbauer and writer Heller stayed within the erotic genre (Heller’s final film, Hijacked to Hell, excepted), producer Wolf Hartwig digressed into horror with Jess Franco’s sublimely gory Bloody Moon (1981) and WWII via Sam Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron (1977).

Entries in this series include The School Girls (1970), #2: Der neue Schulmädchenreport (1971), #3: Schoolgirls Growing Up (1972), #4: Campus Swingers (1972), #5: Naughty Freshmen (1973), #6: What Parents Would Gladly Hush Up (1973), #7: What the Heart Must Thereby… (1974), #8: Was Eltern nie erfahren dürfen (1974), #9: Reifeprüfung vor dem Abitur (1975), #10: Smartie Pants (1976), #11: Blue Dreams (1977), #12: Carnal Campus (1978), and #13: Vergiss beim Sex die Liebe nicht (1980).