SCHOOLGIRL REPORT VOL. #7

West Germany | 1974 Directed by Ernst Hofbauer Starring Puppa Armbruster Deborah Ralls Ulrike Butz Color | 93 Minutes | Not Rated Format: DVD (R0 - NTSC) Impulse Pictures

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		Review by Doug Red Film:7 : DVD:5

Barbara "Babsi" Kaufman has a problem. Finding out that her brother Albert has become a pimp, she goes over to his brothel to confront him Jerry Springer-style. Once there, she is mistaken for a prostitute herself by Mr. Kremer, a caddish piece of slime who commonly calls women "whores". Kremer won't listen to her protestations that she is not a hooker and he paws at her like the Samsonite gorilla until Babsi slaps him into oblivion and Albert throws him out. Kremer the weasel decides to get his revenge legally by reporting the brothel to the police, and thus Babsi, Albert, and the women are all put on trial. Director Ernst Hofbauer's Schoolgirl Report Volume #7: What The Heart Must Thereby... uses the ebb and flow of the courtroom drama to give rise to the various anthology segments of this installment of the venerable erotic series.

The first defendant in court is Helga. At the judge's request, she tells the tale of her first erotic experience, in regards to how it led her down the primrose path to prostitution. Her story starts with a sprained foot then a nude shower in a locker room, where she explores herself sexually but she can't quite get off. Fortunately, a young stud happens upon this scene of wanton lust and is thoughtful enough to fill the void in her life, doggie style, which does the trick orgasmicly. After that, she discovers how useful it is to enjoy sex considering what it can do for her in regards to her schoolwork and more. The next story is related by Mr. Kremer when he's thrown out of court for being an idiot. As an ice cream and espresso supplier, he relates to people outside the courtroom the comic tale of Carlo, an ice cream shop owner whose shrewish wife is making it hard for him to supply the nubile young women who frequent his shop with ice cream in exchange for their amorous services. As such stories often do, it results in a Keystone Cop-style chase through a hotel where the socks-only clad Carlos and three buck naked young lovelies run around trying to avoid the wrath of Mrs. Carlos and her threats of castration for her husband. The third story is related by a woman listening to Kremer's story, who disagrees with his stance on the youth of that era. Thus she relates the tale of Mousie (Puppa Armbruster), a hot young hitchhiker who actually takes the people who pick her up to a remote cabin, gets them in a compromising position, and then has her boyfriend and his three-man biker gang beat and rob them. This noir-like segment revolves around a friendly priest who happens upon the crime scene, and how Mousie is forced to choose between the love of her boyfriend and the easy money of the criminal lifestyle versus the harsh realities of murder and redemption.

Back in the court room, doe-like beauty Karla Döring (Deborah Ralls) relates for the court the tale of how she joined Albert's swinging brothel. A straight-A student and an intellectual behemoth, she is driven to the world of prostitution by a desire to be a thoroughly competent scholar whatever endeavor picks her fancy — in this case, sex. She decides to hit up a business associate of her father, a 40ish man willing to engage in intercourse. Over a hilarious night, she methodically tries out everything about how sex is supposed to work in the detached manner of the academic engaged in the scientific method, judging if her own responses and that of her chosen partner work in the way proscribed by her thorough readings on the subject. The next anthology segment details an elderly woman, brought up to testify about her ownership of the building where the brothel was housed; she relates the story of a Prussian professor newly assigned to a classroom of very earthy Bavarian students. With Prussians apparently standing in for a modern and city-educated society, and the Bavarians being rambunctious farm kids, the Prussian's first day in class is filled with his hands-on education on female anatomy by the beer-drinking, meat-eating, lederhosen-wearing students. The final anthology tale is related by the defense council, relating the tale of Gaby Ottoman, a sexually frustrated student who had eyes only for her teacher, Prof. Steinbeck. Of course, Steinbeck spurns her advances, but in the course of doing so, he falls for Gaby's va-va-voom widower mother (who puts the "F" in MILF). This doesn't sit well with Gaby, who proceeds to take matters into her own hand with a compelling plot of sexual revenge which will get her the erotic satisfaction she seeks.

Schoolgirl Report #7: What The Heart Must Thereby... is another winning sexy anthology film. A horndog's delight, SR7 doesn't skimp when it comes to extending screen time for these diverse women, showing their heavenly and all-natural physiques in loving detail. There is much more going on with SR7 though than just smokin' sexy jiggles, though. Each piece of the film builds to a whole narrative in the way of the best anthology films, and director Hofbauer employs different tones to appeal to different audiences, with stories as varied as the beauties of the film. The first and last segments are the most genuinely erotic, with Gaby's gold-medal gymnastic bedroom performance in the last segment nearing the hard end of the softcore spectrum (and ably performed by Marianne Dupont, the same blond cutie this reviewer enjoyed so much in Schoolgirl Report 8's skinny-dipping scene). It's also worth noting that the first segment with Helga is a great pop-cultural treasure trove, revealing her taste in hirsute men with posters of mustachioed '70s icons Charles Bronson and Peter Wynegarde (as his swinging Jason King character). The second and fourth segments are the most humorous, with Carlo and the girls' naked misadventure supplying the most laughs, and Karla the intellectual's segment is sweetly funny. The third segment with its film noir sensibility seems quite at odds with the rest of the stories, but like other examples in the series, it tries to present a larger image of sex in society. Finally, the fifth segment based around Prussian/Bavarian humor is so off-kilter that it's memorable in its own right. Some of those high school students were pushing 40, and surely some of the cultural interplay made much more sense to German audiences of the time; now it's a little like a joke with only half a punch line. Even with that, Schoolgirl Report 7 gets an "F" for funny and an "S" for sexy.

Impulse's 2010 release of Schoolgirl Report Volume #7: What the Heart Must Thereby... is presented on DVD in 16:9 [1.66:1] anamorphic widescreen. The print does show the wear and tear of age; many scenes have light snow between reel changes, but it doesn't really take away from the viewing and may be a reflection of damage to the actual negative. Slightly worse is some minor artifacting that occurs irregularly throughout the film, where very bright highlights have a ghostly dark bleed into other images. It reminds me of watching original black and white video programming from the '50s when a bright image would give bright lights a black halo. I suspect it has something to do with the transfer process. While annoying, it is a fairly minor complain, as it doesn't interfere with enjoying the fun of the film itself, and no female hotness is obscured. The uncut print is in German, with newly removable English subtitles. Schoolgirl Report 7 doesn't have any odd translation howlers like SR8's "I think I sprained my ass!", but it is easy to read and enjoyable. 6/27/12

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