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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
Film:5
DVD:5
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| A
Swiss production made with mostly West German talent, Frauleins
in Uniform is a rather odd example of the notorious "Naziploitation"
subgenre — odd in that it's uncharacteristically genteel. Oh,
there's plenty of sex and nudity on display, rest assured on that
point. But if you're expecting sadistic torture or grisly inhuman
experiments along with the tits, bums and bush, I suggest looking
to the ones made in Italy. |
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Perhaps
this movie belongs to a hitherto undefined sub-subgenre...
Wehrmachtsploitation. That's because the usual heavies
of Naziploitation pics — you know, honest-to-God Nazis — are practically
nonexistent. There's the occasional "Heil Hitler" and
reference to one's duty to the führer, but SS blackshirts
and Gestapo thugs in leather trenchcoats barely make an appearance.
Neither a concentration camp or a Himmler-sanctioned bordello
ever figures in the plot; I don't think the word "Jew"
is uttered even once. The sadomasochistic nastiness so common
to your typical Naziploitation film is entirely missing here.
Instead we're given a surprisingly lengthy
battle scene pitting defending German infantry against attacking
Russian armor. At times the movie almost plays like a nutty mash-up
of the Schoolgirl
Report series and Cross
of Iron! |
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Rather
than prisoners forced into sex slavery or sluts turning tricks
for the SS, these frisky young frauleins are (mostly) patriotic
volunteers for the women's auxiliary of the German army and air
force.* Once deemed physically
fit and given a bit of training they'll be attached to military
units behind the front lines, crewing antiaircraft guns or working
in communications centers. Apparently not a few of the girls have
joined up merely to get closer to the opposite sex, since all
the eligible (i.e., doable) men have already been called up for
military service. Perhaps that's why kindly Dr. Kuhn (Carl Möhner)
isn't very enthusiastic about giving the ladies their physical
exams — that and his overall weariness of the war. With two daughters
of his own in the same age group, Kuhn sympathetically provides
waivers to any of the "volunteers" who for whatever
reason really don't want to go. But someone reports this laxity
to higher authorities, and soon the doctor is paid an unexpected
visit by the Gestapo. Kuhn is informed that because he has exempted
too many girls from service, he's being immediately assigned to
a combat unit on the Russian Front. His daughters, too, are now
required to serve the Fatherland — and they will pass their
physicals. |
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Siblings
Marga (Elisabeth Felchner) and Eva (Karin Heske) Kuhn are shipped
off along with a group of other young women, their passenger train
shot up by strafing Allied aircraft along the way. (You almost
never see German civilians being machine-gunned like this in American
movies.) They finally arrive at the training camp, where many
of the girls waste little time getting into the male soldiers'
pants — or even each other's — during exercises. Here the film
settles into its peculiarly schizophrenic rhythms, switching randomly
from bawdy sex comedy to soap opera melodrama to military action
all at the drop of a hat. The Kuhn girls befriend Ulrike
(Renate Kasche), who is secretly dying from leukemia and just
wants to get laid and fall in love while she still can. One of
the Kuhn sisters has a tragic romance with a Grizzly Adams-ish
partisan hiding out in the nearby woods, while the other is sexually
assaulted during an air raid and goes AWOL. Some of the more gung-ho
girls get the bright idea to request a transfer to the Eastern
Front, where they can better serve Germany (and horny German GIs).
Dr. Kuhn now reappears, leading an infantry unit on the front
lines. In a clumsily staged — not to mention ridiculous — battle
scene (parts of which were later recycled in 1977's SS
Girls), Kuhn's men repel a Soviet tank attack with mostly
rifle and machine gun fire... which in reality would be like throwing
marshmallows at an oncoming Mack truck. (Gotta give 'em props
for using genuine WWII-era T-34 tanks, though.) Then Kuhn learns
that a group of female Wehrmacht auxiliaries has been cut
off and surrounded by the Russians in a nearby town. (Are his
daughters among them?) Assembling a volunteer raiding party, Kuhn
leads his troops in an assault on the town to rescue them... resulting
in the admittedly rare spectacle of watching a platoon of women
run buck-naked through an artillery barrage. (And not one of 'em
is a natural blonde.) |
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While
eschewing the "torture porn" element so common to
Naziploitation, producer/director Erwin C. Dietrich (a frequent
collaborator with Jess Franco in the 1970s) certainly doesn't
skimp on the T&A. Lesbian trysts, skinny-dipping, a striptease
act, the obligatory group shower scene... The film is a veritable
catalog of familiar sexploitation tropes. Much of the dubbed
dialog is amusingly awful, too, so there are chuckles to had
along with the acres of female skin.
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| *
One of the film's alternate English-language
titles, She-Devils of the SS, makes
absolutely no sense. None of the girls is a member of the Schutzstaffel,
nor are they in any particular respect "she-devils". |
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| Up
until now I've always avoided DVDs released by Cheezy Flicks —
a "gray" market/bootleg outfit — because of their reputation for
crummy fullscreen transfers culled from inferior VHS tape sources.
But when I heard that Frauleins in Uniform
was a notable exception I decided to check it out... and was very
pleasantly surprised. The film is not only presented in its correct
1.85:1 aspect ratio but is anamorphic to boot! Damage to the source
print is minimal and colors are quite vivid, although scenes tend
to vary in sharpness and moiré effect is occasionally noticeable.
The dubbed English audio track is fairly strong so all the goofy
dialog comes through clean and clear, marred only by a bit of
low background hiss at times. (I'm not certain whether the movie
is in the public domain or this is simply a flagrantly unauthorized
release, but Cheezy has added newly-created text to the opening
credits: "Cheezy Flicks Presents".) A
couple of extras are even tossed in: five minutes of ancient drive-in
concession stand ads (in severely ragged condition) and a reel
of battered trailers for other Cheezy offerings. 5/26/12 |
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