La prof et les cancres

School Teacher in College, The (1978)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A sexy school teacher (Edwige Fenech) arrives at a boys only Catholic school where everyone falls for her and that includes on kid's father who just happens to be a millionaire but is undercover acting poor. This second film in the series isn't connected to the first one as Fenech is playing a different character all together. Several cast members from the first film appear here but as with Fenech, they're playing different characters. Whereas the first film was cheap fun the same can't be said here as the laughs are hard to come by. There's a lot of politically incorrect talk and most of the jokes take aim at gay people and there are countless situations where straight men are mistaken for gays and various words are thrown at this. The screenplay is also rather weak because not too much happens except for various people drooling over Fenech, which doesn't take much considering how beautiful she is. The supporting cast is completely forgettable but a lot of this is due to the weak screenplay. Fenech is also not as good as the previous film but she still has that wonderful body to show off, which she does. I did like her character more here as she isn't a push over and really stands up for what she believes in. The highlight of the film is when Fenech first starts her job and one of the students has a daydream of her stripping for the class. This happens early on in the film so the rest is pretty much a drag.

Playing the new English teacher at an Italian college full of prankish boys, Edwige Fenech looks incredibly beautiful - perfection in the form of a woman. We just want to look at her on the screen, but these annoying trying-to-be-funny people keep blocking our view. One teacher has poor eyesight, the gym coach is clumsy, one student's father is a millionaire posing as a poor man, he also has a mistress, and a fat assistant....seriously, does anyone care about any of this? (though at least the mistress gets naked twice). There are perhaps 2-3 chuckles here and there, but most of the "comic" material is lame slapstick. Another movie to be watched in fast-forward mode. (*1/2)

Gianfranco D'Angelo, who was Professor Puntiglio in The School Teacher, is back with his Hitler mustache at a new school as Professor Strumolo. He is still teaching physical education, but is no longer going with Edwige Fenech, who is Monica Sebastiani, no longer a tutor, but a teacher at a Catholic boy's school. Reminds me of my typing teacher, who was also the only female at the school I went to.

Fenech doesn't waste time displaying her ample assets as she performs a striptease in class. It was just a student's (Leo Colonna) fantasy.

We don't see her again until later in the shower. I thought the boys would have a peephole, but no. Poor Carlo (Colonna) is pining away and getting nowhere.

While he is pining, his dad is trying to get Monica himself. But, mostly, the movie was students pulling silly pranks on their professors.

The movie didn't seem to have a purpose, and, if they made half the effort they did on the first, it would have been good.

This is just so awful that it is hard to comprehend that it was ever made. Yet, I understand the series was popular in Italy at the time. Presumably, one or two of these overgrown schoolboys playing buffoons were popular in themselves. Fashions come and go, however, and I doubt they would have a fan on the planet now. The drawn out slapstick gags come one after the other, each more unfunny than the last and all accompanied by the cast laughing uproariously to their own stunts. The lovely Edwige Fenech, of course is ravishing throughout, but deigns not to take her clothes off as much as in the first film. There must have been cinema-goers, like me now for instance, who might have been tempted to see the film just for the lady but I feel it has to be admitted that their really was an audience for this stuff in the late 70s. Pretty likely that some highly considered gems of today will look a little flat when the fame has faded away. Just worth it for Edwige.

This review concerns the version released in Germany as 'Flotte Teens und die neue Schulmieze'. During the first twenty minutes we see Gloria Guida and some pals drive around aimlessly in footage from `Peccati di gioventù' (1975). Suddenly we switch to Edwige Fenech starting work as an English teacher at a boy's college in `L'Insegnante va in Collegio' (1978). No further attempts are made to edit the two films together. Gloria and Edwige may both be featured on the poster, but they never shared the screen together.

Only people as dimwitted as the men in the latter portion of the film would fail to notice Guida's complete absence after La Fenech enters the picture. But being a Fenech fan, you won't hear any complaints from me. Edwige has to cope with an even bigger collection of dribbling idiots than usual, ranging from horny students (always including Alvaro Vitali, apparently too stupid to graduate), their parents (Lino Banfi, Renzo Montagnani) and moronic teachers (Carlo Sposito, Gianfranco D'angelo). Lucky for them Edwige is willing to stand in as the gym teacher as well. Compared to her other two outings as 'L'Insegnante', this one features only the minimum required nude scenes by Fenech: a strip tease fantasy (in the classroom) and a short shower sequence (power to the peep-hole).

Now if they really wanted to make something original, they should have spliced some more scenes with Gloria Guida in there. For after those first twenty minutes, `Peccati di gioventù' turned into a murder mystery in which Gloria plots to kill her step-mother. Combining that into a crass sex comedy like `L'Insegnante va in Collegio' would certainly have ensured a cult following. But then they could not have used the title `Flotte Teens', which was probably their only reason to hire an editor in the first place.

5 out of 10