Lehrmädchen-Report (4 Stars)

The literal translation of this film's title is "Apprentice Girl Report", but I don't think anyone can understand what it's about unless I explain this branch of the German education system.

Germany probably has a bigger variety of school types than any other country. Everyone starts off in the Grundschule, the primary school, for the first five years of education. After that children are divided into three groups. There's the Gymnasium, similar to English grammar schools, which is a school system designed to guide children towards universities. It lasts eight years. There's the Hauptschule (the main school) for less gifted children, lasting five years, giving them a basic education. There's the Realschule (please don't ask me for a translation), which also lasts five years, but it gives children a higher level of education than the Hauptschule. Children with a good final exam result can transfer to a Gymnasium for another three years.

The choice of school isn't decided by an exam. The class teachers in the final year of the Grundschule make a recommendation what sort of school is most suitable for each child. It's possible for the parents to appeal against the recommendation. Regardless of the choice, 10 years of education are compulsory for every child. Every additional year is voluntary.

Then there's the Berufsschule (career school), a type of school that's typically German. The speciality of the Berufsschule is that the children spend approximately 20 hours a week in school and 20 hours a week in a company. Working in a company is compulsory; any child who doesn't have a job offer is refused a place in the school. Usually that isn't a problem. Many companies are eager to employ these children, aged 15 and upwards. They're called Lehrlinge (apprentices). In the past it was common for apprentices to work without pay. Nowadays the German unions have demanded payment for apprentices, but it's much less than the hourly rate of a full time worker. Many small companies only employ full time workers if they've completed an apprenticeship (not necessarily in their own company), so apprenticeships are an important part of German culture.

Many children enrol in a Berufsschule after successfully completing a Hauptschule or Realschule. It's also possible, but less common, to enrol in a Berufsschule after completing a Gymnasium. In some parts of Germany it's possible to enrol in a Berufsschule after only four years of Hauptschule, in which case the child joins the same classroom as the older children. The child spends either two or three years in the Berufsschule, depending on the type of career he's chosen.

The Lehrmädchen in the film's title are schoolgirls who study at a Berufsschule. The film is directed by Ernst Hofbauer, the director of the first eight Schoolgirl Report films, so it can be considered a spin-off of the Schoolgirl Report films, which usually showed girls from a Gymnasium.

Like the Schoolgirl Report films, "Lehrmädchen-Report" tells a series of short stories about schoolgirls aged from 15 to 17. The stories are linked by a reporter who asks officials (doctors, social workers, union representatives and lawyers) questions that relate to each of the stories. Only once, at the end of the film, does the reporter express her own opinion. She says that the laws to protect under-age girls from sexual abuse shouldn't apply in cases where girls are expressing their own sexual wishes.

1. In the first story, 15-year-old Annemarie Garde is an apprentice in a clothing store. She's not interested in the other workers who are closer to her own age. She wants to get the department leader into bed. She succeeds in making him nervous by climbing ladders in her short skirts, but when she finally throws herself at him he turns her down. He has more self-control than me.

The story takes on a negative aspect when Annemarie's colleagues trap her after work and rape her. Was it her own fault because of the way she behaved at work? The reporter leaves the question unanswered.

2. Marianne Haupt (16) is an apprentice for an exclusive hairdresser in Munich. The girls all have to wear the same uniform, a see-through blue top with no bra. The prices are high, but the men are queuing round the block for a wash and cut. It's certainly a hairdresser that I'd want to visit. Things go well until one of Marianne's customers suggests another job as a hostess at the Munich Exhibition Centre. She has to give rich customers hand jobs at the end of the day. After servicing her first customer she runs away in tears.

3. Franziska Köck (17) is an apprentice in a building company. That might seem like a strange job for a girl, but her father owns a building company, and he wants her to take over from him one day. He's sent her to work in another company, so that she won't get preferential treatment. That's certainly not the case. The other men don't take her seriously on the building site, so they try to sabotage her work. After that they want to have sex with her. Men! The foreman himself is the most obnoxious of them all. So she gets revenge.

Franziska promises him sex in a cabin after work. When he's naked she drugs him with Schnapps laced with sleeping pills. She hangs his clothes from a crane. The next day he stumbles out of the cabin naked and he's a laughing stock.

4. Loni Papst (15) is an apprentice in a publishing company. Among other things, the company prints the men's magazine Frivol. I remember it. It was rather tame, just tasteful nudity that didn't even go as far as American magazines like Playboy. Nevertheless, Loni is shocked, and she shows a magazine to one of her teachers in the Berufsschule. This leads to complaints about the company.

5. Jutta Klenk (16) is doing an apprenticeship as a cook, and she works in the club house of an airplane club. The pilots, all men, are mad about her and want to take her in their planes to impress her. The first pilot takes her in the air and starts touching her, but she resists him, and the plane crashes. We don't see what happens to the pilot, but she survives with only a few minor bruises. The second pilot is a gentleman, but he's so excited about being with her that he doesn't notice the fuel tank is almost empty. It's yet another plane crash, the second that Jutta has caused in two days. They crawl out and make love. And they live happily ever after?

6. Else Wagenfuhr (16) is an apprentice saleswoman in a department store. She wants to go away at the weekend with her boyfriend, hoping to lose her virginity, but she doesn't have a bathing costume. She steals a bikini, but the department leader, played by the incredibly beautiful Elisabeth Volkmann, sees it and threatens to fire her. She blackmails Else into having sex with her, after which Else is allowed to keep the bathing costume.

The next day Else goes away with her boyfriend Toni. The sex is good, but she decides that she prefers women.

7. Karin Homann (16) is an apprentice in a television repair shop. Her boss is a creepy man who keeps touching the girls when he talks to them. I felt like slapping him. Karin gets revenge by promising him sex and meeting him while her colleagues are hiding in the next room. When he's undressed they burst in, and he's blackmailed. He has to give them a pay rise and a company holiday.

The film is trash cinema at its best. I love it! There are scenes with gratuitous nudity that round off the film as a perfect example of German exploitation films. When the reporter interviews a school doctor, naked schoolgirls are queuing up behind him to be examined. It's so deliciously inappropriate. They don't make them like this any more. Sadly, it can't even be bought any more. It's long out of print.