Film Review: High Test Girls (Sechs Schwedinnen von der Tankstelle, 1980)

The 1980 film High Test Girls (original title: Sechs Schwedinnen von der Tankstelle), a sequel to Erwin C. Diettrich’s 1979 softcore comedy Six Swedish Girls in a Boarding School, exists in a peculiar liminal space within cinematic history. While sequels that surpass the quality of their predecessors are vanishingly rare, films with negligible artistic or narrative ambition often manage to replicate their own mediocrity with alarming consistency. This sequel, however, delivers a product that is technically proficient yet creatively inert. Its existence feels less like a continuation of its predecessor’s story and more like a contractual obligation fulfilled with minimal effort, a cynical exercise in brand recycling that nonetheless benefits from the charm of its performers and the director’s pragmatic understanding of his audience’s expectations.

The protagonists, six Swedish women portrayed with varying degrees of charisma and wit, return for this follow-up, though their transition from boarding school students to gas station attendants stretches credibility even by the loose standards of softcore cinema. Having either graduated or been expelled (the specifics are unimportant), the women inherit a chalet in a Swiss village and convert it into a “full service” petrol station—a euphemism that quickly becomes literal. Their overt sexuality, framed as both a business strategy and a lifestyle choice, provokes the ire of Marie, the mayor’s wife (Jane Baker), who campaigns relentlessly to shut them down. Her husband Hans (Karl Gysling), the mayor himself, is too preoccupied with political theatre to address her complaints effectively. Council meetings, ostensibly convened to discuss the station’s “scandalous” operations, are repeatedly delayed as Hans’s absence provides an alibi for his colleagues to pursue extramarital trysts with Marie. This absurd dynamic—where the very authority meant to uphold morality becomes complicit in its subversion—serves as the film’s flimsiest plot device, a satire so shallow it barely rises to the level of social commentary. Hans eventually capitulates, striking a deal that allows the town’s brass band to rehearse in the women’s chalet in exchange for turning a blind eye to their extracurricular activities. The transactional resolution is emblematic of the film’s broader ethos: a wink-and-nod compromise between vice and bureaucracy, where no one truly loses.

Diettrich, often dubbed the “Swiss Roger Corman” for his prolific output of low-budget genre fare, adheres rigidly to the formula that defined his earlier work. His films, including both Six Swedish Girls entries, are structured around a narrative skeleton so slight it functions almost as an afterthought. The plots exist solely to justify a series of set pieces in which the protagonists disrobe and engage in simulated sexual encounters. Yet, despite those limitations, Diettrich’s technical competence cannot be denied. The cinematography is crisp, the editing brisk, and the performances—particularly from the ensemble cast—manage a degree of warmth that elevates the material beyond the sterile mechanics of typical exploitation fare. The actors commit to the absurdity of their roles with a sincerity that borders on endearing, as though they are aware of the film’s limitations but choose to entertain regardless. The result is a film that is “satisfactory” only in the sense that it meets the bare minimum requirements of its genre, offering neither innovation nor embarrassment, but a predictable rhythm of titillation and slapstick.

The casting choices further underscore the film’s ambivalence toward originality. Brigitte Lahaie, a French actress renowned for her pionnering status as hardcore pornographic star, reprises her role as Greta, the group’s scheming instigator. Her presence injects a frisson of genuine star power, though her character’s arc is indistinguishable from her role in the first film. France Lomay returns as Kerstin, the tomboyish mechanic whose sexual escapades are intercut with her mechanical tinkering—a metaphor so blunt it might as well be hammered into the script. Elsa Maroussia, reprising her role as Selma, leans into the role of the maternal figure, offering a counterbalance to the chaos. However, three of the six leads are recast: Elodie Delage as the brunette Astrid, Nadine Pascal as Lil, and Flore Sollier as Inga, both blondes. The new actresses lack the chemistry of their predecessors, their performances feeling more like auditions for the next softcore vehicle than authentic contributions to the narrative. That said, the film does push marginally further into explicit territory than its predecessor, with fleeting moments of simulated intercourse supplementing the usual nudity. Yet even these scenes are sanitized enough to avoid classification as hardcore, ensuring the film remains accessible to mainstream audiences—or at least those willing to overlook its inherent sleaze.

The question of whether High Test Girls succeeds as a sequel hinges entirely on the viewer’s familiarity with Six Swedish Girls in a Boarding School. For those unacquainted with the original, this follow-up might appear as a harmless, if unremarkable, slice of Euro-sleaze: a group of sexually liberated women navigating small-town hypocrisy with humor and hijinks. However, for anyone who has seen the first film, the sequel’s derivative nature becomes glaringly apparent. Diettrich reuses entire jokes wholesale, most notably Kerstin’s “modified bicycle” gag—a clunky mechanical invention that allowed her to receive pleasure in the original. Here, it reappears with no explanation, as though the intervening year had erased all continuity. Her friends’ reactions to the device are equally baffling, their supposed amazement at Kerstin’s invention undercutting any logic that might connect this film to its predecessor. This recycling of material, combined with the near-identical character archetypes and plot beats, renders High Test Girls less a sequel and more a “special edition” of the first film, retread territory dressed up in marginally different locations.

Diettrich’s attempts to inject novelty into the sequel are both sporadic and uneven. The surreal interludes involving fictional television programmes—a recurring feature in his filmography—stand out as the most ambitious sequences. In them television character either comment on or actually interact with the audience. These sequences, while brief, showcase Diettrich’s willingness to experiment with form, albeit in a manner that feels more gimmicky than subversive. Unfortunately, their placement early in the film robs them of impact; the rest of the runtime is filled with increasingly uninspired gags and half-hearted innuendo. The narrative peters out abruptly, with no resolution for the mayor’s subplot or the town’s simmering moral panic. By the credits, the viewer is left not with a sense of catharsis but with the faint relief that the film’s interminable parade of contrived situations has finally ceased.

The film’s technical merits are undeniable, yet they highlight the inherent contradiction of Diettrich’s career. As a director specializing in exploitation genres, he mastered the art of creating polished, watchable content with minimal resources—a skill that earned him comparisons to Roger Corman, though without the latter’s occasional flair for cultish ingenuity. High Test Girls is competently shot, with a color palette that emphasizes the Swiss Alps’ picturesque setting, juxtaposed against the women’s increasingly risqué antics. The editing is fluid, ensuring that the softcore sequences flow without jarring cuts, while the scor complements the tone. These elements suggest a craftsman’s eye, but they also expose the hollowness at the film’s core. When every technical decision serves the sole purpose of facilitating the next nudity scene, the result is a work that feels more like a checklist of tropes than a cohesive story.

Comparisons to the subsequent sequels—Six Swedes in Ibiza (1981) and Six Swedish Girls in the Alps (1983)—reveal High Test Girls as a transitional piece. The former two abandoned softcore constraints in favor of explicit content, leaning fully into hardcore pornography. By contrast, Diettrich’s 1980 entry remains coyly within the bounds of mainstream acceptability, a choice that may have been pragmatic (to avoid stricter censorship) or artistic (to maintain a veneer of respectability). This middle-ground approach, however, leaves the film stranded. It lacks the unapologetic carnality of its successors while retaining the narrative deficiencies of its predecessor. The decision to retain Lahaie, a performer synonymous with hardcore, in a softcore role feels like a missed opportunity; her screen presence hints at the subversive potential of the genre, yet the film’s timid boundaries prevent her from fully exploiting it.

Ultimately, High Test Girls is a textbook example of how to produce a sequel that is neither offensive nor memorable. Its technical execution is sound, its performers game, and its premise sufficiently frivolous for viewers seeking escapism. Yet its refusal to evolve beyond the template of the first film—or to even acknowledge its own continuity—renders it a pale imitation of itself. The surreal TV segments, though clever in concept, are undermined by their isolation within the script, appearing as brief detours from the otherwise monotonous parade of softcore set pieces. For those seeking a “guilty pleasure,” the film delivers, but its pleasures are so perfunctory that guilt quickly curdles into indifference.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

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