La Liceale (5 Stars)

This is the fourth film in my high school movie marathon. I intended to watch seven films by the end of May, but I doubt I'll make it. I have a lot to do over the weekend, so I'll have to skip a few days and continue in June. I may add a few more films to the marathon to make up.

There's no senior prom in this school. There can't be, because it's an Italian film, and Italians don't do proms. I don't understand the Italian school system. The children are 17, but it's class 3L. If any Italians are reading my blog, please leave a comment explaining the strange numbering.

"La Liceale" was made in 1975, but it wasn't released in Germany until 1980. When I saw it in the cinema I was overwhelmed by the sexuality, but after buying it on DVD I've realised that it's a very good film all round. Some reviewers have criticised it for its lack of consistency. It starts as a comedy, but in the last half hour it turns sad. That's not a problem for me. It fits the film's subject matter as a coming-of-age drama.

Loredana is a virgin, and she wants to stay that way. It's not for religious reasons, or even the ideal of saving herself until marriage. It's a matter of power. As she tells her best friend Monica, "It's fun exciting the boys. The teachers as well. I can make them do whatever I want". She flashes her panties at the teachers, making them stutter and lose their train of thought. When a new teacher gives her a bad mark she jumps into his car and flirts with him. He keeps telling her that he'll get in trouble if he does anything with her, but that's what Loredana wants. She excites him and scares him and the same time, and she'll never get a bad mark again. 

She plays with the teachers and she plays with the boys. She strips naked for her classmate Thomas to paint her, then pushes him away when he grabs her. She would have been disappointed if he hadn't grabbed her. She goes skinny-dipping with Billy, and she allows him to kiss her passionately, but she walks away and leaves him panting for more.

Note: The German DVD changes the names. Billy and Thomas are called Gianni and Petruccio in the original Italian version.

Monica is played by the Italian politician Ilona Staller in her first film role. She disagrees with Loredana's chastity. Monica sleeps with older men, who give her a lot of money. The two schoolgirls both exercise control over men, in their different ways. 

The comedy turns to tragedy when Loredana gives up her power. She falls in love with a business colleague of her father. She enjoys the sexual experience so much that she doesn't notice her power slip away. There's nothing wrong with being in love, but Loredana doesn't realise that the man is using her until it's too late. The worst thing isn't that he uses her physically, it's that he abuses her emotionally.

Can she regain her power? The final scene leaves it open. She flirts with the teacher again, who's now given up resisting her and proclaims his love for her. Then she rides off on the back of Billy's motorbike. Will she give herself to him? Maybe. I hope not.

La Liceale (5 Stars)

I decided to watch this Italian comedy today at short notice. I was reminded about it because my last review received a lot of hits over the last 24 hours. As far as I can tell, most of the readers were from France. Maybe it was shown on French television? There must be a reason. When I saw the figures I kicked myself. This is a film that I forgot when I was compiling my top 100 film list. That would have made it the only Italian film in my top 100. Is it really the best Italian film ever made? I haven't watched many Italian films, but it's the best one I've seen.

It was made in 1975, but not released in Germany until a few years later. I saw it in the cinema in 1981. I thought it was a German film, because it was called "Flotte Teens mit heißen Jeans" ("Saucy Teens in Hot Jeans"). That's a silly title, because there are no jeans anywhere in the film. The schoolgirls all wear short skirts.

"La Liceale", which literally means "The high school", is about a 17-year-old girl called Loredana. She's still a virgin, and she's in no hurry to lose her virginity. It's not that she's shy. She's the very opposite. She's aware of the power of her sexuality. She dresses provocatively, doing all she can to tease the boys and the men are around her. She strips naked when she's with her classmates, driving them wild, then runs away when they get excited. In class she lets her teachers look up her skirt, because she thinks it's funny when their faces turn red and they stutter like idiots. When she's in the street she struts proudly, knowing all eyes are on her. It's all a game to her.

That doesn't mean that there's no pain in Loredana's life. She suffers from her parents being separated. Her father has left her mother for a younger woman. Her mother has a new lover.

Loredana finally gives up her power when she meets an older man, a colleague of her father who's in the city on business. Losing her virginity means surrendering her power. She falls in love with him and wants to run away with him. He leaves her without even saying goodbye. There's a message in that.

There are many more details I could say about the film, but I'll stop there. I even took a lot of screenshots from the film which I've now decided not to include. It's enough for you to enjoy the beautiful photo of Gloria Guida as Loredana.

A problem with the film is the poor quality of the DVD. The cover says that it's digitally remastered, but it's still poor quality. A lot more work is necessary to bring the picture up to acceptable quality. The German DVD that I'm holding in my hand is long out of print. There's an Italian DVD without subtitles, but I expect it's the same picture quality as the DVD I own. If you really want to watch it, it's available to watch on Amazon Prime, called "The Teasers".

La Liceale nella Classe dei Ripetenti (3 Stars)

This is the second film in the Italian Liceale ("high school") series. I don't speak Italian, but the title means something like "The High School Class for Repeaters". In many European countries, including Germany, children need to score a sufficient grade to advance to the next class. If they don't succeed they have to repeat a school year. In theory a child can repeat a class indefinitely into adulthood, but in practice he will leave school when he reaches school leaving age.

I watched both "La Liceale" and "La Liceale 2" (as I prefer to call it) in German cinemas more than 30 years ago. They were given the imaginative titles "Flotte Teens mit heißen Jeans" ("Saucy Teens in Hot Jeans") and "Flotte Teens jetzt ohne Jeans" ("Saucy Teens without Jeans"), leading the films to be called the Hot Jeans series. That was silly, because we never see any jeans in the first two films. I enjoyed the first film a lot. I remember walking out of the second film feeling disappointed. I didn't bother going to the cinema to see the following films in the series. Years later I bought the third film in the series on DVD, but I don't intend to watch it again. It's awful.

This second film isn't awful, but it isn't particularly good either. It's a slapstick comedy about children in one of the last classes of high school (17 or older) playing pranks on their teachers. There's nothing of the coming-of-age drama that made the first film a masterpiece. Gloria Guida returns, but she's not playing the same character. In "La Liceale" she was Loredana, in "La Liceale 2" she's Angela. Rodolfo Bigotti played an American boy called Billy in the first film, but in the second film he's an Italian boy called Carlo. The German distributors in their unfathomable wisdom decided to change the names back to Loredana and Billy, in both the dubbing and the subtitles. I watched the subtitled German version today, and it was annoying. Whenever anyone said Angela's name it was subtitled as Loredana, while Carlo's name was subtitled as Billy.

The Italians are proud of the Liceale films as if they're a pinnacle of Italian comedy. If this is the best they have to be proud of I feel sorry for them. The first film was brilliant, I'll admit that. The rest are average to poor.

Avere Vent'anni (3 Stars)

I noticed today that Amazon Prime includes a film starring Gloria Guida, "Avere Vent'anni", known in English as "To be twenty". It was made in 1978 at the peak of her career.

Unfortunately, the version that's included on Amazon Prime is heavily cut. The original version is 94 minutes long, but the version I watched today is only 73 minutes. From what I've read it's not a matter of censorship. The original film is a mixture of comedy and serious social commentary. The shortened version removes most of the serious scenes to make it funnier.

The film is about two young girls, 20 years old, according to the title, who are hitch-hiking to Rome. They have no money, so they decide to live in a religious commune. The guru teaches his disciples to meditate and distance themselves from the pleasures of the flesh. This is frustrating for the two girls, because the men in the commune resist their sexual advances.

They do get sex, but not the way they expected it. The guru pimps them out as prostitutes to make money to support the commune.

Some reviewers call this a cult film and say that it's essential to watch the uncut version to appreciate it as a political drama. I accept that the uncut version must be better, but I have no intention to spend any money on it. If Amazon Prime adds the uncut version I'll watch it, otherwise I'll forget about it. The version I watched today is a dull erotic comedy, and I'm not interested in seeing what was cut.

La Liceale (5 Stars)

The title of this Italian film, made in 1975, is unbelievably generic. It means "The High School". That's all. And yet I consider it to be the best teen comedy ever made. It was the breakthrough film of Gloria Guida, who was 19 at the time she made the film. She had a highly successful career for eight years, making 27 films from 1974 to 1982. After that she disappeared. I haven't read any articles about the reason for her retirement, but my assumption is that it had to do with her marriage to the successful Italian singer Johnny Dorelli in 1981. I suppose she wanted to put her family first. That's a good motive, but it means that her millions of fans are missing out.

There were four sequels to "La Liceale". Gloria Guida appeared in three of the sequels, but as a different character. In "La Liceale" she plays a girl called Loredana, but in the sequels her name is Angela. The German releases of the sequels attempt to create continuity by changing her name to Loredana in the dubbing. That's a strange thing to do, but it isn't the worst things the crazy Germans did. They combined the five Liceale films with six other unrelated films, making it a series of eleven films. That makes me want to despair.

Even though Gloria Guida plays the lead role in this film, the real star of the series is Alvaro Vitali, shown in the photo above. He's the main character in all of the sequels. My initial impression was that he's imitating Zachi Noy in the Israeli teen series "Lemon Popsicle", but that can't be true. "La Liceale" was made in 1975, but the first Lemon Popsicle film wasn't made until 1978. Could Zachi Noy have been imitating Alvaro Vitali? Somehow I doubt it, but the resemblance between the two in their appearance and mannerisms is uncanny.

"La Liceale" is a work of genius, but the sequels fall flat in comparison. The reason it stands apart is its mix of genres. All five films are high school comedies, but "La Liceale" is also a coming-of-age drama.

17-year-old Loredana is a virgin, unlike her best friends Monica and Lucia. This doesn't mean that she's shy. On the contrary, she's the most provocative girl in her class. She enjoys her virginity. She considers herself untouchable, and that gives her a feeling of power. The boys in her class desire her, the teachers desire her, and every man she passes in the street desires her. For Loredana it's all a game. She teases her classmates Thomas and Billy, stripping naked in front of them and running away when they get excited. In class she lets the teachers look up her skirt, because she finds it amusing that they're too flustered to concentrate on the lesson.

The film contains a few shots like this, where the camera films an embarrassed young man through Loredana's legs. The camera angle says more than a thousand words about the power that Loredana enjoys.

But as I said, this is a coming-of-age drama. Loredana finally loses her virginity, but only by giving up her power. She sleeps with an older married man. She loves him, but he's only using her. Maybe it was wrong for her to lose her virginity after all? That's something each viewer has to decide for himself.

The film has other sub-plots, such as the reconciliation of Loredana's parents after they've been living separated for over a year. I shan't go into that here, but it's details like that which make "La Liceale" a masterpiece.

I bought the German edition of "La Liceale" on DVD more than 10 years ago. If you want to buy it now you'll have difficulty, unless you can speak Italian. You can buy it from Amazon.IT in Italian only. The German DVD that I bought is now out of print and the film can only be bought as part of an extortionately priced 11-film box set. In America it was released on VHS tape as "The Teasers" but has never made it onto DVD. If you really want to see it you'll have to hunt for an illegal download copy. Good luck!