Those Naughty German Schoolgirls!

Ciné-Girl article on Ernst Hofbauer's Schulmädchen-Report 5. Teil - Was Eltern wirklich wissen sollten (1973), the fifth installment in the popular German series, featuring genre regulars Puppa Armbruster, Ulrike Butz and Ingrid Steeger.

Lucrezia Borgia, L'Amante del Diavolo

Two articles on Osvaldo Civirani's 1968 sexy historical film, Lucrezia Borgia, L'Amante del Diavolo, featuring lovely Czech starlet Olinka Berova (née Olga Schoberová). The first is from UK magazine, Continental Film Review, the second from the French Ciné-Girl.

The Nun and the Devil

More nunspolitation in this French article from vintage magazine, Ciné-Girl, on Domenico Paolella's 1973, Le Monache di Sant'Arcangelo (The Nun and the Devil), featuring polizieschi fav Luc Merenda and starlets Anne Heywood, Martine Brochard, Ornella Muti, Claudia Gravy and Maria Cumani Quasimodo.

Red Light Girls

Ciné-Girl article on Rino di Silvestro's 1974, Prostituzione, an odd hybrid of giallo, polizieschi, comedy and, of course, with di Silvestro involved, a healthy dose of sleaze and exploitation. The film features Krista Nell, Orchidea de Santis (both pictured), alongside Madga Konopka, Cristina Gaioni and Felicita Fanny.

Eurostarlets #021: Julie Ege

Norwegian starlet Julie Ege on the cover of Stars System (issue #9 - January 1977). Apart from appearing as the Scandinavian Bond Girl in On her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), the former Miss Norway, Miss Universe and Penhouse pet was a regular feature in early 1970s UK horrors such as Creatures the World Forgot (1971), The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1973), Craze (1973), The Final Programme (1973) and The Mutations (1973).

Sex Stars System was a French film magazine dedicated to the nude and erotic aspects of generally non-mainstream cinema. 18 monthly issues were released between 1975 and 1976 (the scheduled release of issue #19 is unconfirmed). In December 1976, the magazine's name was changed to Stars System, starting with a new enumeration. On the editorial board one finds Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, film critic, filmmaker, actor, writer and editor in chief (for 30 issues between 1978 and 1986) of the vintage erotica magazine, Fascination. Bouyxou also wrote, amongst others, for the French issues of Vampirella (the French issues focused on genre films between the regular comics) and Ciné-Girl which is similar in style to Sex Stars System. As a writer/actor Bouyxou also worked with Alain Payet, Jesus Franco and Jean Rollin. The style and mood of Rollin's 1979 film, Fascination was influenced by Bouyxou's erotica magazine of the same name.

Commedia Sexy all'Italiana

Almost every Italian genre starlet has at one point appeared in a commedia sexy all'italiana, a very popular film trend from the 1970s that managed to hold its own well into the 1980s. The undisputed queens of this subgenre, with such series as Poliziotta, Insegnante and Liceale, undoubtedly are the stunning Edwige Fenech, gorgeous Barbara Bouchet and pretty Gloria Guida. Here are two review articles from the French magazine Ciné-Girl, both concerning initial entries in their series, the first of Michèle Massimo Tarantini's La Liceale (1975), which has a nicely sounding German title, Flotte Teens und Heisse Jeans, the second Nando Cicero's L'Insegnante (1975), known in France as the promissing La Prof Donne des Leçons Particulières.

Heroines in Distress (or perhaps just Disarray)

The Nude Swim #002

Lovely starlets taking a nude dip in this Ciné-Girl image from Ruggero Deodato's 1969, Zenabel. The gorgeous waterfalls in the sequence are the famous and often used Cascate di Monte Gelato, a familiar recurring location for fans of eurowesterns, pepla, war movies, historical films  and various gialli. Among many others the falls are to be admired in such movies as, I Corpi Presentano Tracce di Violenza Carnale (1974), Delirio Caldo (1972), Milano Trema: la Polizia vuola Giustizia (1973), Il Giorno del Giudizio (1971), Sepolta Viva (1973) and Quel Maledetto Treno Blindato (The Inglorious Bastards - 1978).

Marchands de Filles (1957)

Under the title, Le cinéma de papa, the vintage French magazine, Ciné-Girl featured a recurring item focusing on the more risqué cinema of the 1950s. The first issue published in 1977, had this two-page article on Maurice Cloche's Marchands de Filles (1957).

Involving a white slave trade racket and narcotics trafficking, the film is a wonderfully sordid evocation of these 'maisons close', and from the noirish Parisian settings to the sweaty atmospherics of South America, plays out entirely against a backdrop of sleazy nightclubs, stripjoints, abandoned docks, grimy wharfs and the seedy clutter of alleys surrounding the decrepit South American harbor, with barely dressed prostitutes lounging in every shadowy doorway. Vicious, sadistic gangsters abound with their seedy henchmen, lascivious molls, corrupt cops, chorus girls and drugged prostitutes. The film is filled to the brim with barely dressed girls roaming the backstage corridors of tacky cabarets and underwear-clad whores lingering about the dank, sweaty corridors of cheap brothels and drab boarding houses. There is a seriously tacky sequence in the whorehouse, in which an old, sweaty matron chalks up on a blackboard the amount of customers the girls have already gone through, and believe me, there are a lot of marks on that board. There are two instances of actual nudity in the original French version of the film (available on VHS tape on the René Chateau label), usually missing from the English language version, Sellers of Girls. The first concerns an on-stage strip-act, with the dancer baring her breasts for an instance before the spotlight goes dark and she is seen outlined against a lighter background. The second moment involves three naked ladies posing on a stage of a nightclub. Their act is interrupted when minions of a rival gang burst in and trash up the place. Such risqué moments where quite common in French genre cinema of the 1950s and director Maurice Cloche was no stranger to the subject matter, with movies like Les Filles de Nuit (Girls of the Night - 1958), Prisons de Femmes (Women's Prison - 1958) and Requiem pour un Caïd (Interpol jagt leichte Mädchen) to his credit.

Daniele Rocca (above) and Agnès laurent (below) with George Marchal, in two images from the René Chateau video sleeve.

Life becomes unbearable for petite Josette Legrand (really cute Agnès Laurent), living in the suffocating confines of her provincial home, mistreated by her vicious and cruel stepfather. Running away, she ends up in Paris, but alone and with little money, the discouraged girl is an easy mark for white slave traders. A fake blind woman asks her to deliver a letter to a bar, where a certain Mr. Jean seems to take pity on her and offers her a job as a waitress. But it is all a ruse to slowly gain her confidence and soon she is offered a better position in a 'respectable' nightclub in a South American harbor. Along with two other girls, Vera and Gaby, sweet Josette is shipped off to the exotic locale and arrives at Le Granada, a lush establishment ruled with a firm hand by racketeer Gofferi and his mistress, the sultry Bettina (Daniele Rocca from Freda's Caltiki - il Mostro Immortale). With the nightclub, along with a travel agency, a front for their white slave trading racket and drug running, innocent Josette is unwittingly dragged deeper and deeper into a life of vice and debauchery, until she ends up imprisoned in a sordid whorehouse in the worst part of town. As the rivalry between two gangs comes to a head, an undercover Interpol vice agent finally moves in to rescue her and some of the other girls, exposing the mysterious mastermind behind the racket in the process.