Schoolgirl Report 7 (4 Stars)

"Four years have passed since the first Schoolgirl Report film was released in 1970. Has the world become less immoral since then?" These words are asked by the speaker at the beginning of the film. "No, but maybe it has become more honest".

As if to answer the question the story begins that builds the film's outer frame. Barbara, 16, visits a house where her older brother Albert is spending his time. She finds that he's running a brothel, in which girls from their school are working, making money from older men. A fight breaks out when a customer tries to rape Barbara, leading to a court case.

1. The first girl on the witness stand is Helga, 17, one of the prostitutes. She tells how she first had sex with a boy in the shower at school. After this she became addicted to sex, needing it three times a day, mostly while she was at school. Albert suggested that if she enjoyed sex so much she should be paid for it, and so she began to work in Albert's brothel.

2. While waiting outside the courtroom the witnesses discuss their opinions of schoolgirls and tell each other stories. The first talks about three girls who used to get free ice cream in an ice cream parlour by letting the waiter look up their skirts. Rinaldo Talamonti plays the horny waiter Carlo to perfection. Becoming greedy, the girls tempt Carlo into a hotel to get more from him. His wife follows him to the hotel, and there follows an episode in the style of the 1960's British farces, with naked men and women running through the hotel.

3. Another witness tells the story of Monika. She hitches a lift and invites the driver, naturally an older man, into a hut at the roadside to have sex. Once there she screams rape, and three bikers rush in, beat him up and rob him. Evidently she has been doing this for a while. But this time a priest who knows Monika witnesses the act and takes photographs of the assailants. He reports the incident to the police, but before they can interview him Monika has a brilliant idea. She visits the priest and confesses the robbery to him. This means he's bound by an oath of silence and can't tell the police anything. I wonder if that would really work? If any Catholic priests are reading this post please leave a comment. But in this case, the priest is smart as well. He dresses in normal clothes and drives around until he sees Monika hitchhiking again. He picks her up before she van recognise him, and drives her to the hut. The bikers begin to attack him, but the police are waiting outside.

4. Back into the courtroom. Carla, 17, is the most intelligent girl in her class. When asked by the judge why she prostitutes herself she tells the story of how she lost her virginity at 16. She had read books about sex and knew it all. Then she needed to find an older experienced man to do it with. She picked a 40-year-old friend of her father and made him have sex with her while giving him a running commentary on what he was doing. Just like in the text books. After that she became a prostitute because in her eyes prostitution is the only honest form of sex. She doesn't explain what she means by it, but I assume it's because both partners are open to one other what they want: one wants sex, the other wants money.

5. Now we see the witnesses again. Rosl Mayr is the landlady of the apartment where the brothel was run. Quite untypically for the whole series of films, she tells the other witnesses what it was like when she was young. Her sister went to school in a Bavarian village. A Prussian student teacher arrived on his first day. The children first made fun of him because he was unable to understand their accent. Then the girls bared their breasts for him to feel them. This scene is out of character, because it suggests that in the old days schoolgirls were even more provocative than they are today.

6. Now the defence attorney tells a story to the court that has nothing to do with the case. Gaby Ottermann was a young girl who had a crush on her History teacher. Unfortunately her teacher began to date her mother. In order to win him Gaby put on a wig and disguised herself as her mother. She waited in his house and had sex with him with the lights off so he wouldn't recognise her. After he realised his mistake he left the town to work in another school. Totally irrelevant to the case. Or am I missing something?

And finally the results of the case. Albert is found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison. The girls are not punished in any way, but the judge says they need to be educated. As Barbara is shown walking home through the streets of Berlin the speaker gives the summing up:

"Today's youth has difficulty adapting to the world of adults, but the courts have understanding for their difficulties, so today's youth can expect a better future."

Nice words, but what do they mean in the context of the film? Today's schoolgirls don't know what to do, so they become prostitutes, but they won't be punished so they'll be okay in the end? The film has a confused message, but let's not complain too much. This film has more comedy than any of the previous six instalments, so let's accept it on that basis.