Schoolgirl Hitchhikers (3 Stars)

If you go to the supermarket and buy a can of Baked Beans, you go home and open it up and what do you find? Baked Beans! If you go to the cinema kiosk and buy a tub of strawberry ice cream, you take it to your seat and open it up and what do you find? Strawberry ice cream! Those are things we take for granted. The label on the box is what you get.

Now let's say you go to a store and buy a DVD called "Schoolgirl Hitchhikers". You take it home, put the disc in your DVD player, and what do you find? A film with no schoolgirls and no hitchhiking! Aren't there any laws against false advertising?

Let's not blame the French director Jean Rollin, who's pictured above. When he made the film in 1973 it was called "Jeunes filles impudiques", which is literally translated as "Scandalous young girls". It's not his fault that whoever released it in English decided to change the title. Maybe it was someone in the advertising department who decided that the English title had to be more racy to tempt perverted old men into the backstreet cinemas. There's no money back after you sat down on a sticky seat.

(Sex cinemas were common in England and most other countries in the 1960's and 1970's. They died out when video rental became common in the late 1970's. Supposedly they were frequented by usually decent men who dressed in long raincoats to disguise themselves. I wouldn't know, I was too young at the time. Now anyone can buy a video, DVD or Blu-ray to watch it at home. Discreetly).

The two young girls in the film, Monique and Jackie, look like they're in their early twenties. From their appearance they might be university students, but nothing is said in the film to confirm it. They could just as well be two office workers on holiday together. They're camping in the woods. Maybe they hitchhiked to get there, but once again, hitchhiking is never mentioned in the film.

In my recent review of "Night of the Hunted" I stated that Jean Rollin made a series of pornographic films from 1973 to 1985, because his vampire films were commercial flops. This is the first of those films, and as far as I know it's the only one that is still available today. I've read that his films were hardcore pornography, but "Schoolgirl Hitchhikers" hardly even qualifies as softcore. I assume my readers know the difference between hardcore and softcore: in hardcore pornography there is real sex, in softcore pornography the sex is simulated, i.e. you see a man and woman lying together making movements, but the camera angles are set up to hide the fact that there's no real penetration. In "Schoolgirl Hitchhikers" the sex isn't even simulated, it's obvious that nothing is happening. In all the sex scenes the woman is naked, but the man is still wearing his shoes and trousers. He isn't even unzipped. He lies on top of her, writhing and grunting, but the question is "What is he doing?"

By now you're probably wondering what the film is about. Monique and Jackie are camping. They discover an abandoned villa, still furnished despite its state of disrepair. They decide to spend the night in it. What they don't know is that a criminal gang is also using the villa as a hideout after stealing jewels. The two girls have non-sex with one of the men, and they leave on the next day. After the girls have gone the gang discovers that the jewels are missing. They capture the girls and bring them back to the villa to be interrogated. Monique escapes and brings a private detective and his assistant back to free Jackie.

At this point the plot breaks down. Why not the police? Wouldn't that have been more logical? And why does the private detective work for free? Then there are ridiculous situations. The detective is disarmed by the gang, who then leave him in the villa while they go to a gazebo to continue the interrogation. What does the detective do? Does he drive back to the next town to get help? He could even walk back, because we already know it was close enough for Monique to walk. No. He decides to go to bed to get some rest. In the morning he enjoys French croissants with Monique and his assistant, waiting for the gang to return.

The film alternates between drama and comedy. By that I mean the comic scenes between the incompetent gang and the even more incompetent detective. The non-sex scenes aren't even funny, they're embarrassing. This is a low point in Jean Rollin's career.

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