Liebe zwischen Tür und Angel - Vertreterinnen-Report

Between the Covers (1973)

** (out of 4)

German sexploitation comedy has the beautiful Nina (Heidi Kappler) trying to find a job so she goes to a meeting for magazine salesmen. Once there the general manager asks the people for their sexiest encounter while trying to sale magazines.

The German "report" movies were some of the most popular films back in the day and it's easy to see why so many people enjoy watching them today. Whenever you find one that really works you're usually filled with a lot of great laughs while looking at some beautiful women. Of course, whenever you're dealing with a popular genre you always run the risk of cheaper products that aren't nearly as good and that's basically what you're getting with BETWEEN THE COVERS.

For the most part there's really not too much going on here. The film runs an extremely quick 69-minutes but even that seems to drag at bit. At most, while watching this film I couldn't help but be more impressed with some of the other report films because you realize how well-written they were. The problem here is that we're basically just given a bunch of boring sex scenes and there's really no good story to support them. What makes the report films so entertaining in the comedy but there's very little of that here. In fact, I think I might have laughed once, which certainly isn't enough for a film like this.

As you'd expect, all of the women were beautiful and there's plenty of nudity to be had but I think most fans of the genre will be somewhat shocked at how little of it there is. There are a couple good stories here including one involving a salesman who finds himself getting lucky with two women. Fans of the genre who must see everything might want to check this out but those new to the genre would be better off starting somewhere else first.

So far there is only one other review. The other reviewer saying that it's only 69 minutes and features very little nudity. That barely even sounds like the same film. The review is old, so it may have been working off an older print that was censored somewhere. Not even minor ones, but apparently enough to remove about the only thing this movie is known for: extended scenes of men talking about their sexual conquests, with full length flashbacks, some of which feature two or even three women, in succession or at the same time. The version I saw is 83 minutes long, and I swear it feels like there is near constant nudity. When the traveling salesmen are just talking back and forth before they get into a story they are even watching women in a nearby strip club who somehow are dancing in front of clear glass windows. Even when things are not explicit something is always being teased or implied. Even with 14 minutes (!) chopped out, I'm dubious that they could have cut enough for someone to say there's very little shown. How would that even be possible? What movie did you see?

What didn't go wrong? The actors-actresses didn't look very sexy to me. I don't care that much watching Euro movies, often called Euro trash I think it's much better than American soft sexy movies filled with shame.

One thing that stands out is how casual Europeans are about nudity.

The problem i had was their acting was so wooden as to be painful to watch.

Then the movie turns bizarre and more as if the director was try to put shock value in to enhance it.

It was also supposed to be funny, and it fails there too. At times it's funny in that it was my first Danish sexy fiick. I think I'm going back to French and Italian.