Schoolgirl Report 2 - What Keeps Parents Awake at Night (1971)

The 1970s was a rough decade for film industries everywhere. Television had been eating into cinema audiences for years and things were getting tougher. It was difficult enough for Hollywood,  even with its resources. It was especially nightmarish for film industries in other countries. What kept them going, to a large extent, was sex. That was one area in which television simply could not compete. In Germany the film industry was at least partially kept afloat by the Schoolgirl Report movies. The first was released in 1970 and by 1980 the series had run to thirteen movies.

The Schoolgirl Report movies were a minor pop culture phenomenon and they made a truckload of money throughout the world. The formula was undeniably clever. They were ostensibly documentaries on changing sexual behaviour among the young. Each movie was a collection of supposed case studies, interspersed with interviews with people in the streets and with panels of experts pontificating, with lots of wise head-nodding. In fact of course these films were simply an excuse to show a lot of young ladies without their clothes on getting up to various sexual escapades. And while the tone was mock-serious the films were clearly meant to be vastly amusing. They really had more in common with the sex comedies of the ’70s than with any kind of actual documentaries.

Now don’t be alarmed by the title. These girls all look to be at least twenty-three and most are probably pushing thirty.

The second instalment in the series was Schulmädchen-Report 2. Teil - Was Eltern den Schlaf raubt (Schoolgirl Report 2 - What Keeps Parents Awake at Night).

The first segment (which is perhaps the best) deals with a hapless science teacher who is set up for blackmail by his female students. If they can get photos of him having sex with one of them he’ll be sure to give them all a passing grade. It’s all quite amusing with some groan-inducing dialogue and more sexual innuendo than a Carry On movie and then there’s a sting in the tail. Which is one of the things that makes this movie so intriguingly odd - the tone is all over the place.

Then there are teenagers discovering sex in a barn. Teenage runaways who want freedom but find it’s not much fun when you have no money and you get hungry and then suddenly going home seems like a really good idea. There’s a guy who think he’s about to lose his virginity to a girl in the woods but he just loses his dignity instead. Then there’s the girl who gets date-raped. There’s a very light-hearted segment about a couple of girls who take up nude modelling to keep themselves in wigs. Yes, wigs. Everybody knows that a girl will do anything for a wig.

Then there’s Elke, the only girl in her class who’s still a virgin. She tells the other girls wild stories of her imaginary sexual adventures and they call her bluff by setting her up with the town stud. With unexpected results. This is the one segment in which there’s a hint that maybe girls enjoy sex more when they like the boy.

Then there are the four girls who are really bored one night. What they really need are some men. One of them gets a brilliant idea. She rings for a cab. When the cabbie arrives she explains that they’re budding artists and they really need a male model. A nude male model. Right now. Would he like to earn some money? He would, but he discovers that these girls want to do more with his body than just look at it. And there are four of them and he’s just one man. This segment is good-natured fun. Then the tone changes to deadly seriousness in the next segment. A girl who has is getting plenty of sex has a problem. No orgasms. Then her parents take in a lodger who is going to help her with her math homework. She thinks it might be different wth this man but events spin wildly and tragically out of control.

Some of the segments are pretty much pure comedy. Some are sleazy. Some are depressing. Some are tragic. Some segments are funny and sleazy and depressing and tragic. Some are terribly earnest warnings about the dangers of immorality and some of them are celebrations of sexual freedom. It was a weird decade so it produced weird movies.

While the moral stance varies it has to be said that on the whole this movie comes down very heavily on the side of sexual freedom, to an extent that might upset modern sensibilities. You have to remember that the ’70s were a lot less strait-laced than today’s world.

Now let’s face it you’re not going to watch a movie like this today for the titillation. So why would you watch it? Well obviously it has exceptional camp value. It is definitely amusing at times. There’s the time capsule element - 1970s fashions and hair-dos, and 1970s free-wheeling sexual attitudes. There’s the WTF aspect. You really have no idea when each segment begins whether it’s going to be funny or tragic or desperately sad or just plain weird. There is also of course the fact that the naked women look like actual naked women, not like the results of vast amounts of cosmetic surgery. And of course they all have pubic hair. There’s lots and lots of female pubic hair in this movie.

Is it a movie that would hold any appeal at all to a female viewer? I’d say that a woman with a taste for ’70s retro style might well enjoy it, and get some laughs.

Impulse’s DVD is barebones but the transfer is OK. The soundtrack is in German with English subtitles and the hilarious translation add further fun. “Do me. Do me several times.” They just don’t write dialogue like that any more.

It’s a fascinating look at an era that now seems incredibly remote, almost a different universe.

The sex scenes are decidedly odd and not especially erotic but there’s an astonishing amount of naked female flesh on display. If you’re fascinated by the ’70s, if you’re interested in changing attitudes towards sex, or if you just like weird movies that will amuse you and make your head spin then you probably need to see at least one Schoolgirl Report movie. So on that basis, it’s recommended.