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.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1912—Pravda Is Founded

The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country’s leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid.

1983—Hitler's Diaries Found

The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler’s diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess’s flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.

1918—The Red Baron Is Shot Down

German WWI fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron, sustains a fatal wound while flying over Vaux sur Somme in France. Von Richthofen, shot through the heart, manages a hasty emergency landing before dying in the cockpit of his plane. His last word, according to one witness, is “Kaputt.” The Red Baron was the most successful flying ace during the war, having shot down at least 80 enemy airplanes.

1964—Satellite Spreads Radioactivity

An American-made Transit satellite, which had been designed to track submarines, fails to reach orbit after launch and disperses its highly radioactive two pound plutonium power source over a wide area as it breaks up re-entering the atmosphere.

1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit

American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records “Strange Fruit”, which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history.

1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail

American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West’s considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy.

1971—Manson Sentenced to Death

In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed.

Horwitz Books out of Australia used many celebrities on its covers. This one has Belgian actress Dominique Wilms.
Assorted James Bond hardback dust jackets from British publisher Jonathan Cape with art by Richard Chopping.
Cover art by Norman Saunders for Jay Hart's Tonight, She's Yours, published by Phantom Books in 1965.

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