SEX EDUCATION

Everyone in class is expected to give an oral presentation.

The Japanese poster you see here, which is quite striking, was made to promote the West German sexploitation movie Schulmädchen-Report 5. Teil – Was Eltern wirklich wissen sollten. Quite a mouthful. In English it was known as Schoolgirl Report Part 5: What All Parents Should Know. Still a mouthful. There’s a reason for that. These films, of which thirteen were made, are legendary—or maybe infamous is the appropriate word—for pioneering the idea of sexploitation flicks as documentaries. We’ve talked about a few of them, specifically numbers threeseven, and eleven. The tail end of the title for this one—What All Parents Should Know—gives the film a gloss of scholarship, as if scientific research went into its making. But it was a fig leaf. People watched these movies to see nudity and sex, not to educate themselves. And if anyone actually hoped for education, well, they were steered horribly wrong.

The movie consists of six vignettes. In the first, three high schoolers bet during a rural field trip that they can lay their straight arrow teacher. In the second, a man is seduced by his granddaughter and ends up on trial. And so it goes, from scenario to scenario, all of them strange. None of the performers involved, female or male, would win a beauty contest, but a few are appealing, such as Sonja Jeannine, who features on the poster, and Ingrid Steeger, who was a stalwart in sexploitation films and men’s magazines. While a couple of the vignettes have serious undertones, they’re mostly meant to be tongue-in-cheek. What is incredibly serious, though, is how far the envelope gets pushed thematically. Grandfather/granddaughter incest? That’s not good at all. We can’t recommend the film, but we love the poster. You won’t see it anywhere else. Schulmädchen-Report 5 premiered in Sweden in 1973 and opened in Japan today in 1974.

“Oh, come on, grandpa! I’m sure your heart will be just fine.“
 
“Heh heh, I have to admit, my dear—that get-up is a lot sexier than the bunny pajamas you used to wear.”
 

“I’m out of order? I’m out of order? Your Honor, are you kidding me? She’s out of order!”

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.

1935—Jury Finds Hauptmann Guilty

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh. Hauptmann is sentenced to death and executed in 1936. For decades, his widow Anna, fights to have his named cleared, claiming that Hauptmann did not commit the crime, and was instead a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, but her claims are ultimately dismissed in 1984 after the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to address the case.

1961—Soviets Launch Venus Probe

The U.S.S.R. launches the spacecraft Venera 1, equipped with scientific instruments to measure solar wind, micrometeorites, and cosmic radiation, towards planet Venus. The craft is the first modern planetary probe. Among its many achievements, it confirms the presence of solar wind in deep space, but overheats due to the failure of a sensor before its Venus mission is completed.

1994—Thieves Steal Munch Masterpiece

In Oslo, Norway, a pair of art thieves steal one of the world’s best-known paintings, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” from a gallery in the Norwegian capital. The two men take less than a minute to climb a ladder, smash through a window of the National Art Museum, and remove the painting from the wall with wire cutters. After a ransom demand the museum refuses to pay, police manage to locate the painting in May, and the two thieves, as well as two accomplices, are arrested.

Cover art by Roswell Keller for the 1948 Pocket Books edition of Ramona Stewart's Desert Town.
Rare Argentinian cover art for The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.

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