Schoolgirl Report (4½ Stars)

This is a very difficult film to explain to anyone who isn't German and over 50. It's the first in a series of 13 films made from 1970 to 1980. The films were about schoolgirls having sex, willingly or forced, with schoolboys, older men or even other family members. This sounds like the sort of films to be shown in sordid backstreet cinemas where dirty old men in raincoats queue for an hour or two of guilty thrills. But that wasn't the case. The Schoolgirl Report films were shown in major cinemas and were watched by people of all ages. The first film, which I'm reviewing here, was watched by six million people in Germany alone. 10% of the population! The immense popularity of such sleazy films is unthinkable in other countries.

To summarise the film: girls from a high school go on a bus trip to see a power plant. While the class tours the plant one of the girls returns to the bus to seduce the driver. The teacher returns and finds them having sex on the back seat. The school's headmaster calls a meeting of parents to discuss whether the girl should be expelled. At first the parents favour expulsion, until one of the parents, who is introduced as a youth psychologist, tells a series of stories to the other parents to describe the sexuality of modern schoolgirls. These stories, which take up the majority of the film, lead to the parents voting unanimously against the expulsion.

In the first story a schoolgirl exposes her breasts to a Catholic priest during confession. In the next a schoolgirl seduces her sports teacher. Then we see three very young girls seducing the lifeguard at an outdoor pool. Two girls are shown having sex with classmates for the first time. Another girl has her first sexual encounter with an older man. Yet another schoolgirl experiments with lesbian sex before choosing men. In between the scenes there are interviews on the street where girls are stopped and asked their opinions on sexual questions.

The report format for films was nothing new. Similar films had been made in America in the 1960's, and were shown in backstreet cinemas for dirty old men in raincoats. So what was different about the German report films? First of all, an element of comedy was added. In the first film only one of the scenes was comical, but the comedy increased in the following films. Second, there was a whiff of exploitation and illegality. Many of the girls were introduced as being 14 or 15, although the unnamed actresses were at least 16, the minimum legal age for full nudity in German films. According to the posters the girls in the film were genuine schoolgirls. This was not true. The producer, Wolf C. Hartwig, approached girls who worked in department stores and offered to pay them 300 Marks (150 dollars) a day to act in the films. This was very lucrative, compared to a typical monthly salary of about 600 Marks. The girls were aged 16 to 19, but he chose the ones who looked younger. In the later films several professional actors starred alongside the unknown teenagers.

The Schoolgirl Report films, and the other report films that mimicked their success, were a cultural phenomenon. The great success of this series was due in part to sexuality in Germany being a taboo topic, leading to curiosity about the details of sex. Another factor was the German paranoia after they had lost a war and their country was divided. Yet another factor is that the films have their roots in German literature. It's no coincidence that Schiller is quoted during the film. The film has the structure of 18th Century "Rahmennovellen" ("frame novels"). In the film the youth psychologist tells stories about himself. In these stories nested stories are reported to him. In one of the stories a girl even tells her friend about her experiences, leading to a four-fold nesting.