Gefangene Frauen (3½ Stars)

I never know how to rate films like this. It's full of beautiful women, which is always a plus, but it's trashy, and the plot is stretched so thinly between the nude scenes. It's not a good film, but it would be unfair to call it average. The rating 3½ Stars is a fair compromise.

This is a Swiss film made in 1980 by Erwin C. Dietrich. It was released in English as "Caged Women", which is a fair translation. As anyone familiar with the genre must know, what we can expect from a film about women in prison is nudity, torture and lesbian sex. Erwin C. Dietrich doesn't deviate from this, so if you're a fan of the genre you won't be disappointed.

The film takes place in an unnamed South American country. A United Nations inspection team is expected soon, so the President wants to clean up the country. There are European women working in the capital's brothels, and he thinks there might be suspicions that they've been kidnapped, so he needs to hide them. He has them arrested and sent to the island prison of Tarumago. There are 17 women, all young and beautiful. The film concentrates on three of them who share a cell.

Nadine Pascal as Rosi

France Romay as Lisa

Brigitte Lahaie as Rita

If you think they look familiar, it's because they're three of the six Swedish girls from "Six Swedish Girls in a Boarding School". Erwin C. Dietrich had a small pool of actors that he used repeatedly in his films.

After arriving in the prison the girls are hosed down with cold water. This scene lasts longer than necessary. We see six of the seventeen girls being hosed down in turn. I was worried we'd see all of them. Enough is enough.

At first the girls are given dull prison uniforms, but after an escape attempt the girls are punished by having their clothes taken away. That means there's total nudity for the rest of the film. I'm not complaining. The film's nudity is its greatest asset.

Rita, Rosi and Lisa in their cell. This is a definite improvement over those awful uniforms.

The girls even have to remain naked while they're breaking rocks. But tell me... do they really break rocks in prisons? What's the point in it?

The exercise yard is in an arena. Curiouser and curiouser.

A soldier escorts the girls back to their cell. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

This is the prison warden, Karine Gambier as Carla. She's sadistic and implacable. The prison's weak spot is its guards, who are all male. The girls have no problem in seducing them to turn them against the warden.

As I said above, this isn't a good film, but many of my readers might like it. The German Blu-ray contains dubbed English dialogue that only starts after the credits. That means that you have to sit through four minutes of German dialogue while the credits run, but don't worry. It's trivial banter that's irrelevant to the film's story.

Die Nichten der Frau Oberst (1968 version) (3 Stars)

This is Erwin C. Dietrich's first version of "The nieces of the colonel's wife", the literal translation of the film's title. When it was released in America it was called "Guess who's coming for breakfast". That title actually makes sense, in the context of the film. The colonel's wife has no shortage of lovers. She enjoys casual affairs, but she turns down offers of marriage. She wants her nieces to get married, which is difficult, because they're more interested in one another than in men. After sleeping with a man, the colonel's wife invites him to breakfast to meet her nieces.

There are many differences between the two versions. I really should have watched them in the other order.

The 1968 film is set in the present, i.e. the 1960's. The 1980 film is a period piece that takes place in the 19th Century or earlier.

The colonel's wife is comfortably rich in the 1968 version, but in the 1980 version she's much wealthier.

There are only brief glimpses of nudity in the 1968 version, whereas the the 1980 version presents gratuitous nudity throughout.

The 1968 film tells us a lot about the men, whereas the 1980 film is told entirely from the women's perspective.

The 1968 film features a nephew called Sebastian who's missing in the 1980 film.

The 1968 version has a more detailed plot and is probably more faithful to Guy de Maupassant's story, on which the films are based.

In the 1968 film Florentine gets married to Alexander, one of her aunt's former lovers. It's an unhappy marriage, because he can't perform in bed, leaving her a virgin. It must be a psychological problem, because he had no trouble satisfying the colonel's wife.

In the 1968 film Julia has a boyfriend who's a rich nobleman. He's a pig. She wants to remain a virgin until marriage, so he tries to force himself onto her. He hits her whenever she says No. Eventually he leaves her, despite a lucrative offer from the colonel's wife: "You can sleep with me while you're waiting to get married to my niece". 

This was the most successful  film of Erwin C. Dietrich's career. It sold over five million tickets in the cinema in 1968. In comparison, the 1980 film was only moderately successful. I don't understand it. The 1980 film is much better, in my opinion. Maybe the 1968 film was just the right film at the right time.

Die Nichten der Frau Oberst (1980 version) (4 Stars)

This film is based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant. There are two versions of the film on the Blu-ray that I watched today. The first was made in 1968, the second in 1980. Both were directed by Erwin C. Dietrich. That's interesting. How often has a film been remade by the same director? I can only think of two other examples. Alfred Hitchcock made "The Man Who Knew Too Much" in 1934 and 1956. Jess Franco made "Eugenie" in 1970 and 1980. In both cases the director thought he could improve on the original. Neill Blomkamp has said that he wants to remake "Elysium" if it's possible to finance it. He says that the film has a lot of good ideas, but he's unhappy with the way it turned out.

It's not easy to translate the film's title. "Oberst" is a German military rank that has no direct equivalent in the American army. It's a high ranking officer, so it's usually translated as colonel. The story by Guy de Maupassant is called "The colonel's cousins", so I'll stick with colonel. "Frau Oberst" isn't a female colonel, the title refers to a colonel's wife. That means that the full title is "The nieces of the colonel's wife"; not cousins. When the film was released in America, no attempt was made to translate the title. Instead, it was called "Secrets of a French Maid". Ugh! That makes no sense at all in the context of the film. Yes, there is a maid, but (1) she's not French, and (2) she's a minor character with only five minutes screen time.

Foolishly, I watched the 1980 version first. I should have watched them the other way round. Sorry. I'll watch the 1968 version tomorrow.

The colonel's wife is a a young widow. She lives in a large mansion. The film takes place in a time when army officers were rich nobleman. It's probably the 18th or 19th Century. She has two young nieces in her care, and she's trying to find husbands for them.

Julia is played by the stunningly beautiful actress Brigitte Lahaie.

Florentine is played by Pascale Vital in her first film role.

The trouble is that Julia and Florentine are more interested in one another than in men. They're both still virgins. The colonel's wife encourages them to find men. They do what they're told. Julia has sex with the stable boy. He's not very intelligent, but he's good at sex. Florentine wants to have sex with the gardener, but she finds him so repulsive that it takes a few days before she can bring herself to do it.

The colonel's wife takes her responsibility as her nieces' legal guardian very seriously. She goes to bed with the stable boy and the gardener to test them. She wants to know whether they're good enough to satisfy her nieces.

At some point the plot breaks down. There are multiple sex scenes with various men and women. The colonel's wife has a large sexual appetite and devours every man she sees. Not just men, she also has sex with her maid.

This is a highly erotic film. The men in the film are just being used by the three women, especially the colonel's wife. It's not a film that won any Oscars, but it succeeded in its goal of presenting beautiful eye candy. The cinematography is outstanding. The scenery is tranquil and relaxing, emphasising the gentle erotic nature of the film.

Blutjunge Verführerinnen 3 (4½ Stars)

This is Ingrid Steeger's sixth Swiss film, made in 1973. I ended 2020 with Ingrid Steeger, and I've started 2021 with Ingrid Steeger. That's an appropriate tribute. She was one of the greatest actresses of the 1970's. She may have been forgotten since then, but her true fans still fondly remember her films. She's now 73, and I hope she accidentally stumbles on this blog. I want her to have a warm feeling when she reads that I still think about her.

The film was released in America as "Young Seducers 3", but a more accurate translation is "Underage Seducers 3". In an interview shortly before his death, the film's director, Erwin C. Dietrich, said that "Blutjunge Verführerinnen 3" was put together from unused footage from the first two films. I don't see that. This doesn't look like a throwaway patchwork film. I consider it the best film in the series. If anything, it was the second film that lost track of itself. This film returns to the original concept of sexually aggressive schoolgirls. Every girl in this film is presented as a schoolgirl, even though none of them look like schoolgirls. For instance, Ingrid Steeger was 26 when she made the film. 

The film begins with a schoolgirl running away from a boarding school, the Sankt Georgen Stift. It's a Catholic school that looks more like a prison than a school, but she manages to climb out of a window and over the wall. The girl's name is Babsi, but I'll call her Ingrid, because it's the wonderful Ingrid Steeger who's playing the role. She hitches a ride from an older man. He refuses to tell her his name, so she calls him Bluebeard. Wasn't that a serial killer who killed women? It's strange that she should pick that name.

Ingrid flirts furiously with Bluebeard as they drive away. He accuses her of being sex mad, but she says that the other girls in her school are worse. She tells him five stories about girls in her school. Ah ha! The usual vignette system! And this time Ingrid is telling the tales. Wonderful!

1. The first girl Ingrid talks about is Linda. She spent her summer holiday on a farm, plucking grapes in the vineyard. Do you see what I mean about the age of the actresses? There's no way I can accept her as a schoolgirl. She seduces the farmer's son, Flori.

Linda's attitude towards Flori is amazing. "Flori isn't very handsome. He's not sexy. If I'm honest, he's very stupid. I think I'm in love with him". It's a shame that the secretary from the last film isn't there to tell the scriptwriter that this is a bad script. To add a few of Flori's other qualities, which Linda hasn't listed here: he's a virgin, he has bad teeth and he stutters. Nobody can help him with his teeth or his stutter, but Linda takes his virginity.

2. Next we see Brunhilde, in the events leading up to her parents sending her to the boarding school. She's supposed to be 15? If all 15-year-olds looked like that, I'd have been thrown in prison years ago.

Ingrid said that the other girls are worse than her, but here we see it's not true. Brunhilde has a boyfriend, an older man. Of course! She says that she wants to remain a virgin until she's married, so she restricts herself to riding a rocking horse naked while her boyfriend watches. Her parents find them naked, and they assume they're doing more. Despite Brunhilde's protests that it's completely innocent, she's sent to the boarding school.

3. Viola also spent her summer break on a farm. She follows a farm worker into the woods and tells him she wants sex with her. He replies that he doesn't need a young girl, because he can have as many women as he wants. When she undresses, he changes his mind fast. He can't resist her.

Could any man resist a schoolgirl like this? But then again, I've never seen a schoolgirl like this. Do they even exist?

4. Lore (15) and Heidi (16) are two girls who are closer than sisters. They spend all their summer breaks together. They're nicknamed The Twins, even though they're unrelated and Heidi is a year older. While they're out cycling, they find a man whose car has broken down. Lore invites him back to her home to phone the nearest car repair shop. Heidi cycles home. Lore gives the man the telephone number, but it's actually the number of Heidi's house. She tells the man that all the mechanics are out on jobs, and his car can't be repaired until the next day.

While the man is on the phone, Lore undresses. The man forgets all about his important business meetings. Wouldn't you? Lore's parents must be away, because she goes to bed and has sex with the man all night. Not quite all night. At 4 am he falls asleep, so Lore sneaks out and rings Heidi. "I'm tired and I'm worried he'll want more when he wakes up. Can you take over?" Heidi cycles to Lore's house. She doesn't wait for the man to wake up. She wakes him straight away, and the sex continues.

5. 15-year-old Nadja is at a motocross rally. Note that she's standing, not sitting like everyone else. She's trying to attract attention. After the race she goes to the hotel where the winner is staying. He's forgotten to lock the door, so she goes in, gets undressed and lies naked on the bed. She tells him that she's the special prize for the winner.

Can he resist? Of course not. There's no doubt about who's in charge. She throws him on the floor, and she's soon bouncing up and down on top of him. I've never known any 15-year-old girls like her. But then again, I doubt the actress is a day under 25.

Now comes the part which I like the most. Bluebeard takes Ingrid to a restaurant in Regensdorf. He buys her a drink – isn't she underaged? – and then says he finally wants to know about her. The last half hour of the film is all about Ingrid. This is by far the sexiest segment of the film. Or am I just biased because I like Ingrid Steeger?

This isn't the first time she's run away from the school. The last time she got a job as a nude model at the Zurich Academy of Art. She says that the men were fantasising about her when they should have been painting. That's understandable.  She relates the fantasies of three of the men. How did she know what they were thinking?

The first man daydreamed that she was a prostitute, but she loved him so much that she paid him for sex. That's something that can only happen in fantasies.

The second man daydreamed that they were sitting naked on his bed looking at a book with erotic photos. While looking he imagined that they were having sex. So this was a fantasy about a fantasy?

The third man daydreamed that Ingrid was naked in his room, but every time he tried to touch her she disappeared like a fairy.

Ingrid had a boyfriend in Zurich, a married man. They couldn't go to his house, so they drove out of the city and had sex in the car in the woods. A forester walks by and writes down the number plate. Her boyfriend is afraid that he'll report the car to the police, so he asks Ingrid to go to his hut and seduce him.

Ingrid heads off to do her task.

Ingrid finds the hut and strips for action.

Do you like what you see, Mr. Forester?

It's all yours, big boy!

You've never seen action like this before!

Ingrid doesn't want to leave. She finds the forester much better than young men. Although by her definition, young men are anyone under 40.

But the romance was never to be. She was sent back to school by the police.

Bluebeard checks into a hotel for the night. It's been a long drive, and he's exhausted. He wants to sleep, but Ingrid has other plans. He's going to have a long, hard night.

Blutjunge Verführerinnen 2 (4 Stars)

This is Ingrid Steeger's fifth Swiss film, made in 1972. The title, which means "Underage Seducers 2", suggests that it's a sequel to "Blutjunge Verführerinnen", made a year earlier. This isn't the case. The first film was about schoolgirls seducing older men. In this film, which is divided into eight segments, the women are all older. Probably in their early twenties, judging by their appearance. Only one girl is still a schoolgirl, but she's described as an Arbiturient, which means she's in the 13th year of school, making her 18 or 19.

The film begins with a man ringing up an agency, asking for a temporary secretary. The woman arrives almost immediately. Women must be desperate for jobs in Switzerland. The man is Manfred Gregor, a film screenwriter, and he wants someone to type his latest script. There's a subtle detail here that casual viewers might miss. Erwin C. Dietrich was the screenwriter for this film, but he used the pseudonym Manfred Gregor. That means he's writing the film about himself, which becomes important in the later dialogue.

There follow eight vignettes, unrelated short stories that make up Manfred's screenplay. This is the typical style for the report films which were popular in the 1970's, but there are no claims to be reporting anything, and there's not even a thread to link the stories. Manfred just wants to write a film to entertain audiences. Fair enough.

1. Rosa is taking ski lessons in Switzerland. She attempts to seduce her instructor, but when she tells him she doesn't take the pill, he walks out on her. She takes the train back home, feeling frustrated. There's a man called Roland with her in the sleeping car. This time she doesn't mention not being on the pill, because he jumps on her at the slightest invitation. Roland, exhausted, goes to sleep. Isn't that what men always do after sex? Another man gets into the sleeping car later. He's also a ski instructor. Rosa has sex with him as well. I wonder what colour hair the baby will have. It could even be twins.

What's interesting is that there is frequent dialogue from Manfred and his secretary off screen, arguing about the screenplay. She tells him that he doesn't know how women think. This criticism is repeated in every vignette.

2. The second short story takes place in the Middle Ages. A knight called Dagobert leaves for war and locks his wife Kunigunde in a chastity belt. Unknown to him, Kunigunde has a spare key, so she invites her four lovers to have sex with her. We hear Manfred relating the story in voiceover (frequently interrupted by the secretary), but what we see on screen is a girl called Nelly in a bowling alley with four friends. Her bowling is awful, so she gives up and retires to the changing room. One after another, the four friends take a break and have sex in the changing room, returning as if nothing has happened.

That's an interesting way of making a film, showing one story while narrating another, but one thing spoils this vignette: Nelly looks so unhappy while having sex. I don't think this was part of the film, it looks as if the actress (Melitta Tegeler) just wasn't enjoying it. She's pushing the men away while they were pretending to have sex. "This is only softcore, I wish they would stop getting so excited. I want to collect my cheque and go home".

3. Herbert spends every night at home watching silent movies. The only other thing he does is spy on his neighbour Anja who lives in the next apartment. There's a small hole in the wall, and he can see her bedroom. Unknown to him, Anja knows about the hole, so she makes a noise whenever she goes to bed, then undresses seductively. This is an amateur peepshow! One evening she's had enough. She sneaks into his room naked and spreads herself out on the sofa. Herbert can't resist her, but he's not particularly good at sex. He was a virgin. Anja mocks him because he spends all his time watching girls in films and naked girls next door, but he isn't man enough to pick up a girl for sex.

In voiceover, the secretary tells Manfred that this is just like him; Manfred makes films with naked women, but he doesn't know how to have sex in real life. Manfred grudgingly agrees, although he doesn't admit to being a virgin.

4. Babette is the only schoolgirl in the film, albeit an older schoolgirl. She's still a virgin, but she lies in bed at night masturbating to a poster of Elvis Presley on one wall and Bridgette Bardot on the opposite wall. She keeps turning her head from one side to the other as she gets more excited. This looks silly, and the secretary agrees with me. She goes on a school trip, and she's seduced by Sebastian, the best looking boy in her class. In the bus on the way home Sebastian ignores her. He sets next to his girlfriend Gerda, telling her she's the only one he loves.

That's the end of the story. No message to sum up, not even suggested. The secretary doesn't approve. Neither do I.

5. A young countess goes to the cinema, pretending to watch the film, but actually looking for a man for sex. A murderer goes to the cinema, pretending to watch a film, but actually looking for his next victim. They go to see a film and sit next to one another. The film is about a murderer killing a countess on the beach. The two people leave their seats and go to a back room to have sex. This scene isn't completed. Manfred says that she's going to die, but the secretary insists that no woman would be stupid enough to go into a back room with a killer. She refuses to type such rubbish, so the scene is cut short.

6. This is a strange, almost psychedelic vignette. A married couple are sitting in bed. The man is reading a news report about two people who were found dead in their apartment. The woman says that she isn't interested, but she's actually fantasising about the two people. So is her husband. She's having sex with the man, he's having sex with the woman. We see couples in bed, but they morph into one another, so we never know who's really having sex. The picture in the fantasies is in red tones. Very strange.

7. A lorry driver delivering goods to Hamburg picks up a hitchhiker called Eva in Darmstadt. Do you recognise her with her black wig? She's Christa Free, who we know from "The Devil in Miss Jonas". Eva wants to seduce the two drivers, but Günther (on the wheel) and Fritz (on the left) are in a hurry, so they take turns at driving while the other one is having sex. They have sex, alternately, the whole way from Darmstadt to Hamburg. That's an eight hour journey. Lorry drivers must have a lot of stamina.

Needless to say, the secretary doesn't approve of this story.

8. Manfred has saved the best till last. Finally we see Ingrid Steeger as an au pair girl in Berlin. She's waiting at home, babysitting the 16-year-old son while his parents are at the opera. They come home, and the wife goes to bed. Ingrid and the father are lovers, so they have sex on the floor. The mother interrupts them and angrily sends the father to bed. Ingrid seduces the mother, the first lesbian action in the film. The son walks in, and shouts "Mother, this is disgusting!" Those were the good old days when homosexuality was considered a sin. Maybe it still is, in some circles. The mother runs out in shame. The boy jumps on Ingrid to have sex. Wow! She eats her way through the whole family!

The End? Not quite.

The screenplay is finished, but the secretary still has plans before she goes home. Despite all her complaints that the stories are unrealistic, hearing them has excited her, so she rips off her clothes and seduces the inexperienced Manfred Gregor.

This is an uncoordinated film with vignettes that are too short, but it's somehow appealing. It's better than the first film in the series.

The Bed Hostesses (3 Stars)

This is Ingrid Steeger's seventh Swiss film, made in 1973. Yes, I know I'm watching them out of order. The last of her Swiss films that I reviewed was the fourth, "The Stewardesses". What's my excuse? It's a blunder. Maybe I'm drinking too much wine lately.

The title makes it sound that this film is about escorts. That's not the case. The title is spurious. There's a lot of sexual activity in the film, but none of it is paid for. Ingrid's role is brief. She appears for less than five minutes, and she is a non-sexual hostess, looking after the well-being of a champion cyclist on his arrival in Zurich. None of the other girls in the film are hostesses. My suspicion is that Erwin C. Dietrich couldn't think up a name for the film, so he just picked something racy at random. The scenes look like they're leftovers from the Blutjunge Verführerinnen series, of which I've only written about the first film. My apologies once more for skipping the last two films. I'll make up for it, I promise.

The film is a series of vignettes, linked by appearances of a young man called Blumsli. In voiceover he says that his school teachers told him that he would never amount to anything, but he's proved them wrong by getting the best job of all: a window cleaner! Every day he looks through windows and sees naked women. One day he's cleaning the windows of Elite Film Studios, the company owned by Erwin C. Dietrich. He sees more than he's ever seen before, because many nude scenes are being filmed. (They're all scenes from Erwin's previously released films).

Blumsli climbs in through the window and visits Erwin in his office to suggest a partnership. He tells Erwin that he can supply beautiful women as actresses for his next films, because nobody sees as many beautiful women as a window cleaner.

Erwin C. Dietrich, playing himself in the film, invites Blumsli to tell him more over a glass of champagne. Blumsli tells his stories, which leads to the aforementioned series of vignettes. Blumsli appears in some of the vignettes, but the others are merely stories that women he knows have told him.

As you can probably tell, the stories are very weakly linked together. The whole film is a muddle of unrelated scenes. Ingrid Steeger is the only hostess in the film, and she assists Blumsli in one of his former jobs as a masseur. She massages better than him, I can assure you. Blumsli also used to rent horse-drawn carriages, so we see two lesbians travelling together. In another scene a woman exercising in the woods becomes the victim of football players who perform a Satanic ritual with her. It's all so ridiculous.

This is a film for completists, i.e. obsessive collectors like me. The rest of you can give the film a miss, unless you want to turn off your brain and enjoy a few naked bodies.