Jeunes filles impudiques

I hunt down horror but I also dig exploitation and grindhouse or drive-in flicks. By doing that you are immediately linked to the French director Jean Rollin. Jean's flicks are best known for two things, they are really bad and secondly they contain a lot of nudity. And this here is no exception. The strange thing about this flick is that Jean directed it under his porn name Michel Gentil. Why he did this with this flick is for me a strange thing because it doesn't contain explicit sex. His best known porn was Phantasmes (Once Upon A Virgin (1975)). Even the Castel twins, which he used a lot, were indulged and even they performed oral sex with one guy.

But Jeunes Filles Impudiques was the first flick were Jean used his pseudonym. It was also the first flick were he worked together with Joelle Coeur, an actress that delivered Jean's best flicks. But this flick, as bad as it was also became a cult hit in the US as Schoolgirl Hitchhikers. It even stated Sex kittens who stop at nothing.

But it is really a typical Rollin's flick. The script doesn't make any sense, but what do make sense is that again, he used a lot of nudity. You are just 10 minutes into the flick before you will have bushy vagina's. But never you will see some explicit scene's or even some pussies. So even as he used his pseudonym it isn't a porn flick.

What it do have is as I said a script were nothing is explained and were we see stupid things like being captured just by sitting in a chair, when the hitchhikers go to another part the victims staid in their seats, not even tied up. Or when the two girls attend to stay at an abandoned house when suddenly a stranger enters one of the girls immediately makes love to him but afterwards he asks, who are you and what are you doing here!

The reel itself is full of scratches and the inserts of close-ups were shot with another color temperature. I may even say that it is so bad that, yes you can guess it, it even becomes good. It is up to now available everywhere as an ode to Jean Rollin who died in 2010 but I guess it will disappear soon as an OOP.

And for the horror fans, yes, they do torture one of the girls with a whip and they do use a pincer to crush some nipples but it's so badly done and don't think that the erotic scene's will give you a warm feeling, the girls exaggerate with every touch of their body, but at the end of the day, it's Jean Rollin, do I need to say more?

Gore 0/5 Nudity 3,5/5 Effects 0/5 Story 1/5 Comedy 0/5

Two hiking girls, apparently teenagers based on the film's title (though we never see them "hitchhike"), reach a wall in the woods. What mystery lurks on the other side? A mansion, abandoned and waiting for a client? Hmmmm...

Directed by Jean Rollin, who is known for this stuff.

The tone is set from the opening credit cards, which each show two women engaged in some sort of lesbian act... after a dozen or so of those pictures, you might be surprised if the picture was completely clean and family friendly. And do not worry, ten minutes in the girls are undressing each other.

Yes, this film has close-ups on nipple-licking, among other things. It is really only one step about soft-core pornography. Not long after a lesbian scene, a thief named Fred (who looks like a French Tom Savini) shows up and the girls have their way with him.

The plot does develop when the girls are accused of stealing something valuable from Fred and his associates. But by then the film is half over. And it devolves into stripping and torturing...

In the end, what is the point of this film? No idea. My guess is the director and writer conjured up a story that involved girls being naughty and tried to find two girls who would meet their demands. Successfully doing that, they filmed it. It has really no artistic merit whatsoever.

Schoolgirl Hitchhikers (1973)

** (out of 4)

Jean Rollin directs this crime film with a touch of lesbians and sex. Two young girls hitchhiking through the country stop at a house, which they think is empty. Later that night, after some hot lesbian sex, they discover three people are also at the house and they turn out to be thieves missing some stolen jewelry and naturally they think the girls have stolen it. This isn't that bad of a film, although the English dubbing really doesn't do it any justice and the actual budget looks less than a McDonald's value meal. The two female leads are both very attractive so watching them nude half the running time doesn't hurt matters either.

It had been a bad Monday when I popped this one in to the 'ol DVD player. I just wanted to wind down and be entertained and this film delivered. Grindhouse veteran Jean-Jacques Renon was the cinematographer for this film (credited as Oscar Lapin) and gave the film the only hint of class it has. Honestly, great camera work and lighting here with some gutsy angles.

On to the film. We open with two Eurobabes walking through the French countryside when they come upon a stone wall. For reasons unknown to me, the director (Jean Rollin) decides we must watch every excruciating second of the girls' navigation of this wall but I digress. On the other side of the wall is a French Baroque manor that, in spite of its dilapidated looks outside, is surprisingly tidy inside. After a quick tryst, Joëlle Coeur (the characters names aren't mentioned I think) needs a ciggy and discovers a slimy Euroguy with a pornstache and a gun staying in one of the downstairs rooms. Not put off by either the stache or the gun, Joëlle dances in the sheets and when her friend discovers the two, she joins in! The next morning a "plot" ensues and we find out guys with mustaches and guns aren't always worth a roll in the hay. Somehow, this idiot and two other idiots managed to burgle some jewels, I assume from some more idiotic idiot. Those jewels wind up missing and the thieves assume it was our Eurobabes what done it. After some torture and some more torture we are introduced to a French PI and his Eurogirl (I believe she is actually wearing a cheerleading outfit) assistant. From here on the plot has more lead changes than a girls basketball game with the good guys getting the drop on the bad guys only to lose it again.

The film is mindless trash but an entertaining 70 minutes none the less. If your looking for polished soft-core, go elsewhere, but if you just want to vedge at the end of the day with a cold one, this is a good film to use.

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that French schlock maestro Jean Rollin also made adult movies for a period in his career; it seems like many filmmakers of his ilk did at one point or another. This is so flimsy and kitschy from the very start, in every way, that it would seem to fit right in among such features, an impression that's affirmed by an early sex scene and gratuitous nudity, and more to follow later on. Would I have chosen to watch 'Jeunes filles impudiques,' also known as 'Schoolgirl hitchhikers,' if I knew its real nature? Probably not; to each their own, of course, but I just have no interest in such fare, and there are countless other things I'd have watched instead. Was I in the right mindset to watch anything more involved at the time that I sat to watch this? Also probably not, and perhaps that leads to the best suggestion I have for anyone who stumbles onto this 1973 picture: it's ideal to watch at a time when you want to turn off your brain, because it's simple-minded enough that one will wish to turn off their brain anyway; moreover, it will automatically and subconsciously turn off while watching regardless of one's wishes. Not that I'm well-versed in adult videos but I'm inclined to think that even if one is seeking this out for such titillation, it's so meager that I've a hard time imagining one can walk away satisfied. This definitely falls on the spectrum of like titles that are so cheesy they're pretty much a self-parody, and it's entertaining in the same way that any conglomeration of light and sound is - a baseline distraction from whatever else our day has had in store for us. Take that as you will.

But the thing is, there's not nearly as much sex or nudity here as one would be inclined to believe based on how quickly and casually it's inserted into early scenes. It just sort of "is." I don't think this is "bad" per se; I don't know if it can meaningfully be described in terms of "good" or "bad." What it is, to a certainty, is very low-budget, and low-grade; light, frivolous, unbothered, and lackadaisically paced (as if pacing even matters for something like this). I guess the sets are nice. Joëlle Coeur and Gilda Arancio are lovely, sure; sometimes they and their co-stars even act a little bit. The story is pointedly modest, but it is serviceable, and between Rollin's direction and the writing, this actually offers laughs at a couple points; I think they were intentional, particularly indicated by Pierre Raph's jaunty music, though I'm not sure. One can see how this could have reasonably been shaped into an earnest crime drama or comedy, sans skin flick ideations, had Rollin been so inclined. As it is, 'Jeunes filles impudiques' mostly just kind of languishes in a liminal space that struggles to especially bear fruit on any level. It's not rotten - just very, very thin. It's mild, curious, raises a quizzical eyebrow, and has a hard time passing muster whether one wants sex and nudity, action, comedy, crime, drama, or much of anything at all. Even at that I'm sorry to say that I've seen far worse; this is soft by any standard, but it's nowhere near the bottom of the barrel. It's passably and very passively enjoyable, provided a passing diversion is all that one wants from a film. Only, unless one is a super diehard fan of Rollin or someone else involved, what reason does one have to watch in the first place?

Take it or leave it. Even as the plot rather pointlessly wobbles back and forth, and resolves weakly, you could do worse. For being barely over one hour, 'Jeunes filles impudiques' more or less serves its purpose. Maybe that's all it needs to be.