Leidenschaftliche Blümchen

This was one of my favorite late night cable presentations. Beautifully filmed story of a group of girls attending a Swiss Boarding School. They spend their days talking about boys and sex, things they obviously don't really understand. Then one day a new student arrives, an American girl. The others naturally assume that this new girl, played wonderfully by Nastassja Kinski, is experienced in these matters. There is romance, and school girl pranks involving the students at the neighboring boys school across the lake. The cast is gorgeous to look at, and the soft-focus photography reminded me of the films of David Hamilton. In fact the whole theme of beautiful young girls dealing with the first stirrings of sexuality is all quite reminiscent of Hamilton's work, such as "Erste Sehnsucht", and my favorite, "Laura." Also worth mentioning is the music score by composer Francis Lai, who was responsible for the music in many art house and erotic films of this era. I think "Boarding School" is sadly overlooked. I would like to see this one released on DVD with the original German audio, and uncensored, as I am sure this American version must be cut in places. American censors are unkind to films like these, confusing art for exploitation. The presence of Nastassja Kinski, one of the most beautiful women in the world, along with the appearance of Fabiana Udenio, should warrant an official DVD release!

I have seen this movie a number of times and enjoyed it. It was filmed in the 70's so its doesn't have the film quality of today, but its still good. I thought it was funny. I would love to have a copy of it to keep because I haven't seen it in a few years. I think its important to remember that it was filmed years and years ago in another country. The actors obviously spoke in a European language so the American version has other voices speaking English. Its a cute movie and I think we can all relate to that time in our lives when we were exploring sex and love. I think some people would have liked more nudity. As I recall there are a lot of above the waist views, but not much else. Enjoy!

Only reason why this film got released by Atlantic pictures in 1982 is because young Kinski was in the film. Other than that, this film would've been lost in the drive-in market (I think it played in 1977 as PRETTY SCHOOL GIRLS in some US market in the 70's). Little laugh and bad dubbing, but it's good to see a early performance from two beautiful actresses Kinski and Udenio (who is in many U.S. films).

Switzerland, 1956. Five teen girls turn the boathouse near their strict boarding school into an amateur brothel, offering paid services of "sexual education"; the boys from another local boarding school immediately sign up as clients. It sounds sleazy, but the sleaze factor is kept pretty low. The film is surprisingly tame, discreet, tender, even charming at times. The premise may be far-fetched, but the way it's played there are many moments that ring true. IMDb lists the original language as "German", but the English dubbing is barely noticeable, because the voice actors who were chosen to dub the film have varied and distinctly European (but still clear-enough) accents. On the negative side, there isn't much of a plot to the film, and the cinematography is excessively "soft-focus". (**1/2)

This is is one of a number of German films they used to show on late-night cable TV stations a lot in the late 70's and early 80's. But it's different than a lot of those other movies in that rather than being a sex-saturated, oom-pah-pah scrompfest, it's kind of coming-of-age film, not unlike the American teen comedies of the early 80's (it especially resembles the summer-camp classic "Little Darlings"). It's set at a Swiss boarding school where a bunch of girls decide, not only to lose their collective virginity to the boys at a school across the lake, but also to make money by charging them for it! (This is one movie I probably wouldn't expect a modern-day Hollywood re-make of). They have a surprising (and rather ridiculous) amount of trouble pulling this off though.

Even though this movie opens with a close-up of the bare breast of one of the older, bustier girls, this is actually surprisingly innocent movie with very little actual sex in it. It's very dumb but kind of sweet. The main attraction,of course, was Natsassia Kinski, who plays the new girl at the school, who becomes the catalyst for the whole thing after she meets a handsome guy from the boys' school on the train. Except for the topless girl at the beginning, Kinski pretty much provides all the nudity and sex here. She does a memorable striptease (out of an alligator costume!) for the boys at a party, and her de-virginising is the only one that occurs on-screen. Although she was not very old here, Kinski is not particularly believable as an inexperienced virgin (perhaps because in real-life she'd already had torrid affairs with Roman Polanski and Milos Forman by this time).The only other cast member that might look familiar is Fabiana Udenio, the Italian-Argentinean beauty who later played "Alotta Fagina" in the original "Austin Powers". She has only a very small role here though (and, even by German standards, she was too young at the time to really participate in the sexual shenanigans).

This movie doesn't compare to other late German-made cable fodder as a sex film (or to Kinski's truly erotic follow-up to this "Stay the Way You Are"). But although it has the disadvantage of being dubbed, it's really no dumber than most of the early 80's teen sex comedies (and it's one of the few that's about sexually curious girls rather than horny boys). It's worth seeing I guess.