INTERNAL MEDICINE

He's going to turn those Frauen upside down.

Above is a piece of beautiful Japanese promo art for the West German sexploitation flick Mädchen beim Frauenarzt, aka Teenage Sex Report, part of an incredibly popular subgenre of films purporting to inform moviegoers about the sex practices of co-eds. Helmed mainly by Austrian director Ernst Hofbauer, the series of more than thirty films included thirteen entries in the famed Schulmädchen-Report franchise.

Mädchen beim Frauenarzt stars Monika Dahlberg, Christine Schuberth, Brigitte Harrer, Evelyne Traeger and numerous others, and what mostly happens is pretty frauen go to a gynecologist, strip and climb into the stirrups, then we learn in flashback what problems preceded their visits. The girls are presented as studies, complete with superimposed text reading things like “The Case of Ulrike (20),” but even with its medical pretensions Mädchen beim Frauenarzt is a garden-variety 1970s muff-fest.

We support muff-fests. We’re friends of muff-fests. But this is joyless stuff. And certainly, the cervix shots are a touch of clinical verisimilitude we could have done without. All things considered, the Japanese poster, with its dreamy light and cotton candy colors, is false advertising. Because if the movie were half that lighthearted we’d really have something here. But alas, no. Mädchen beim Frauenarzt opened—in more ways than one—in Japan today in 1972.

Japan, West Germany, Mädchen beim Frauenarzt, Teenage Sex Report, Ernst Hofbauer, Monika Dahlberg, Christine Schuberth, Brigitte Harrer, Evelyne Traeger, sexploitation, poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 24

1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping

Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice.

March 23

2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies

American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times.

March 22

1963—Profumo Denies Affair

In England, the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denies any impropriety with showgirl Christine Keeler and threatens to sue anyone repeating the allegations. The accusations involve not just infidelity, but the possibility acquaintances of Keeler might be trying to ply Profumo for nuclear secrets. In June, Profumo finally resigns from the government after confessing his sexual involvement with Keeler and admitting he lied to parliament.

March 22

1978—Karl Wallenda Falls to His Death

World famous German daredevil and high-wire walker Karl Wallenda, founder of the acrobatic troupe The Flying Wallendas, falls to his death attempting to walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda is seventy-three years old at the time, but it is a 30 mph wind, rather than age, that is generally blamed for sending him from the wire.

March 22

2006—Swedish Spy Stig Wennerstrom Dies

Swedish air force colonel Stig Wennerström, who had been convicted in the 1970s of passing Swedish, U.S. and NATO secrets to the Soviet Union over the course of fifteen years, dies in an old age home at the age of ninety-nine. The Wennerström affair, as some called it, was at the time one of the biggest scandals of the Cold War.

March 21

1963—Alcatraz Closes

The federal penitentiary located on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay closes. The island had been home to a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military prison over the years. In 1972, it would become a national recreation area open to tourists, and it would receive national landmark designations in 1976 and 1986.