Directed by: Ernst Hofbauer (Secrets of Sweet Sixteen), Dick Randall (Looking Good)
Cast: Christina Lindberg, Marina Blümel, Claudia Fielers, Philippe Gasté, Peter Hamm, Laura Gemser
Mars Productions / Region 0 / Not Rated / Widescreen / English Mono / 76 Minutes, 58 Minutes
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No, this isn’t the sexiest Supreme Court case in the history of the United States; it’s the most misleadingly titled double-feature in the history of exploitation films. But don’t stop reading just yet. Although these flicks don’t really deliver on the two starlets it promotes, there are some upsides to this double bill.
Ernst Hofbauer’s (The Schoolgirl Report Series) Secrets of Sweet Sixteen (also known as Was Schulm?dchen verschweigen/What Schoolgirls Don’t Tell) is a collection of five vignettes that are packed with some of the themes and acts essential to any sexploitation movie. The first starts with a pedophile picking up a girl a young girl after school and bringing her to his apartment basement only to be thwarted by two concerned, young, and sexy tenants that stop his pedophiliac plans by stripping for him to distract him until the police show up. The story then jumps to a chain-smoking doctor and a priest discussing the events of the two heroic tenants in pseudo-psychological terms before one of them recounts the story of a young girl who attempts to seduce her philandering mother’s fling only to end up getting more than she bargained for.
The next segment is the only portion that has Miss Lindberg in it and probably for all of 7 minutes. One guy tries to help his girl-shy buddy lose his virginity by letting him play peeping tom on one of his trysts to learn some moves before he invites over a girl for each of them a few days later. This kind gentleman sets his friend up with Lindberg’s character “Babs” (I wish I had friends like that), but he just can’t seal the deal.
The lovely Miss Lindberg
The penultimate segment features a group of teenagers hellbent on having a sex romp despite not having a safe haven to do so, so they decide to go at it like dogs in heat in the village’s post office which is owned by one of the girls’ fathers. Throw in a pervy mailman and this vignette is packed with all kinds of kooky hijinks. The last story features a satanic cult that needs a virgin to sacrifice and the pursuit of said sacrifice. Unfortunately the naïve, ideal specimen is always with her Italian fiancé and his group of buddies. After she is captured and chained to the altar, the young mafioso bust in and a Three Stooges-style fight erupts between them and the occultists, who, after taking off their robes, are actually massive, muscle-bound Germans.
This half of this double feature is by far the stronger of the two. While not as gritty and debauched as most sexploitation movies, Secrets of Sweet Sixteen does pack in plenty of nudity and sex acts with women of all shapes, sizes, and ages; the tone, however, is more comical than hot and sensual. The fact that this half of the pack champions Miss Lindberg isn’t a complete fluke because during her small amount of on-screen time we do get the pleasure of seeing her rack. Hidden throughout this 76 minute movie are some hilarious lines of dialogue (“Uh-uh, no bra. Girls looking for action never wear bras.”) and twists in the stories that may not be all that surprising but are still entertaining.
The special features on this half of the DVD are few but worthwhile. There is a collection of trailers from Burbank International for such titles as The Female Bunch, Run Virgin Run, Moonlight Mistress, and Blazing Sands. The only other and best special feature is an audio commentary track done by David Hayes, Kevin Moyers, and 42nd Street Forever creator Jeff Dolniak. Although the commentary track lags a little behind what’s being shown on-screen, it is packed with hilarious and raunchy musings on mullets, Winger, rape, sex, pubic hair, bukkake, and so many more depraved and politically incorrect topics.
The description of Looking Good (directed by Dick Randall, who has produced a plethora of exploitation movies, billed here as “Corliss Randall”) on the back of the DVD case describes this flick as a work video where sexploitation goddess Laura Gemser “doesn’t even break a sweat as she whips her minions into shape using all sorts of torturous exercises moves.” This couldn’t be farther from the truth. The film features Gemser, her co-host Jill, and four women dressed in the most unattractive of 70s workout attire gyrating, air humping, and spreading their legs through some of the strangest aerobic exercises.
The beautiful Miss Gemser
With a swanky 70s soundtrack, awkward slow-motion and still frames, and Gemser’s dubbed narration that sounds like a self-help/don’t kill yourself audiobook, this feature is truly bizarre. Like Lindberg in Secrets of Sweet Sixteen, Gemser is largely absent from this flick. Although she randomly jumps into assist her “minions” by pushing on their various body parts, most of her on-screen time is spent sitting in a wicker chair holding a book describing the exercises (which are all done in sets of eight, for some reason)—no wonder she “doesn’t even break a sweat.” The best part comes at the end of the movie when Gemser’s nipple is clearly visible in her deep-V cut shirt as she sits on her wicker throne and discusses the work outs. Although I wasn’t expecting much from a workout video, this half of the double feature was a complete let down. There wasn’t even anything remotely funny or worthwhile besides that nip slip which is a minuscule fraction of what you can see in any of her other movies.
So, the overall verdict on this double feature is that the title is extremely misleading and that Secrets of Sweet Sixteen pulls all of the weight. If you can find this disk for $5 like I did it’s definitely worth picking up just for Lindberg’s half—that is unless you like watching girls in terrible spandex outfits dance and gyrate around for 58 minutes. Lindberg definitely takes the title in this bout of Euro-sleaze heavy weights, even if it was a terribly, terribly promoted match.
