Reviewed by Ludwig (first published at Ludwig's Rohrstock-Palast http://rohrstockpalast.blogspot.com) and posted to spreview on 4/11/08. This is the 3rd review for this title.
Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence:
Communist schoolgirls get a sample of "capitalist education"
Victim Appeal:
Four lovely Czech women are severely caned in this intricate and rather humorous production. Katerina Tetova is the heroine of the story, set in 1950s Czechoslovakia. She plays Bozenka Novakova, a pioneer (the Party Youth movement) and daughter of an executed Trotskist. The other girls are pioneers as well. It is discovered that they have defaced a newspaper photograph of Stalin, adding a full beard and a Christian cross to the image of the Soviet leader. The pioneers insist that it was just a harmless prank while they were discussing Marxism and religion. But the school authorities, lead by the local political commissar, smell a "reactionary conspiracy". Since the girls are suspected of holding anti-Communist views, it is decided that they should experience a taste of the "Western capitalist ways" - that is, a thrashing with the cane.
All victims are gorgeous and have shapely, spankable bottoms. The Party Youth uniforms are cute, too. I like the red scarves. Eye candy aside, there is also some good acting. The meek and fearful demeanor of the girls adds nicely to the athmosphere. Each pioneer, including the minor roles, gets to say a few lines. It's always refreshing to have a full cast of characterers in a spanking movie rather than mute props. Makes the beatings all the more pleasurable to watch, doesn't it? Speaking of which...
Gratuitous Sadism:
Each girl gets a healthy dose of the cane. A female teacher carries out the punishment while the comminssar and the headmaster of the school watch. As the ringleader, Bozenka is chastised twice, at the beginning and at the end of the session. She is fully nude while the others get to keep their shirts on. The movie info by Lupus claims that each caning consists of 50 strokes, but I counted slightly different numbers: 49 (Bozenka), 45 (1st pioneer), 42 (2nd pioneer), 49 (3rd pioneer) and 46 (Bozenka reprise). But apart from pedantic Germans, who is going to complain? The strokes were not called out aloud, and we all know that it can be difficult to keep track once the adrenaline of a scene starts flowing.
In typical Lupus fashion, the canings are fairly severe and leave wonderful decorative marks, especially on Bozenka. After almost 100 strokes, her bottom is covered with angry, dark red stripes. Afterwards, the girls are made to remove their scarves as a sign that they have been expelled from the pioneers. Bozenka is taken away by agents from the state security - her ordeal will continue in "Stalin 2".
Best Reactions:
All girls have vocal and fairly similar reactions. After a lot of thoughtful hesitation, I would have to pick Jitka Mala, the blonde who plays the second pioneer. I'm a little surprised by my feelings here. Jitka flinches and trembles a lot. More than once, the headmaster has to admonish her to get back in position and hold still. I usually hate it when a bottom's reactions interrupt the flow of the punishment to such an extent, so this is a very odd choice for me.
But in Jitka's case, I find the commotion strangely arousing instead. Probably because it appears very genuine, without a hint of exaggeration. She just can't help herself - the caning goes some way beyond her comfort limit, and for an unapologetic sadist like me, that is fun to watch. In spite of her twitching, Jitka sincerely struggles for composure, which makes the scene even sweeter. With each stroke, she lets out a suppressed howl, sounding like a baby goat sometimes. It's pitiful and, therefore, great entertainment.
Best Line:
The overeager political commissar is the most amusing character. A pathetic zealot and opportunist, he churns out line after line of trite ideology, like a brainwashed automaton. It's hard to pick the best one. My favourite moment is probably when he admonishes the headmaster: "Comrade, you must keep your dialectic materialism attitude."
Nice Psychological Touch:
While the commissar is gung-ho and uncompromising, the headmaster and the female teacher are more sympathetic. Both do their best to placate the fanatical communist and get a bit of mercy for the victims. It's interesting to observe everyone's reactions while one of the girls is caned. Her comrades awaiting their own turn. The commissar as he gleefully looks on. The headmaster, who just seems unenthusiastic and eager to get it over with. Corporal punishment settings with an audience are always exciting, and the dynamics are very nicely captured here.
At the end of the film, it is revealed that Bozenka was right about one of her claims: as a young man, Stalin studied at an Orthodox seminary. It's a device often used by Lupus, reminding us that the hapless girls are the heroines here, while their main tormentor is either lying or ignorant.
How Good Is It Really?
As always, Lupus Pictures go to great lengths to create an authentic period setting. A lot of detail went into the props and costumes. As always, the girls look good and the canings are hard. However, what really stands out about "Stalin" is the almost perfect blend of brooding 1950's iron curtain drama and comedy. There aren't many obvious laughs, but the subtle absurdity of the whole scenario is palpable: how the authoritarian "system", personified by the political comminssar, responds to a trivial prank by the pioneer girls with unabated hysteria. Tragic, outrageous, funny, and of course entirely believable.
"Stalin" was followed by two sequels, both of which are more elaborate and a lot darker. But arguably, the first film is the most successful at capturing the everyday oppression of the time. It takes place at a "harmless" school, not in the dungeons of the state security, and even though the ordeal of the girls is less brutal in absolute terms, it seems more poignant in this setting. Highly recommended, both for the CP action and the story.
What You Learned:
I knew that Stalin was Georgian and that his real name is Jugashvili, but the tidbit about the Orthodox seminary was new to me. As a historian, I appreciate that. Kudos to the werewolves - you never know what you might learn from a spanking movie.
New Review Added 12/15/03
Stalin sets a new standard in spanking videos for production values including costumes, set design, and music, and also for acting by the entire cast, not just the girls. And it stars a sensational new actress, Katerina Tetova, as well as three other young beauties. In this reviewer's opinion, it is one of outstanding spanking videos of the year.
As the video opens, a teacher leads a contrite young girl up to the classroom door. Three schoolmates stand with heads down near the door. The three are dressed in short black skirts, white blouses and red Stalin-era neck scarves. Inside, the School Director and a Communist party member are discussing a student infraction in Stalinist political terms like "American imperialism" and "revolutionary determination". A picture of Stalin in a paper has been defaced by adding a "funny" beard.
We now see a close-up of the three girls. All are cute, especially the short-haired taller girl. They enter and confess that it was Bozenka's idea to deface the photo and the three did the actual work. The teacher leads in a young girl (Bozenka) dressed in a white dress. She is quite beautiful with an angelic face and hair done in two school girl style braids. She is the daughter of an executed anti-communist which suggests her guilt.
The Director and Communist engage in a short political conversation and find all four girls to be part of a "conspiracy" cell in the school. The following image of all 4 girls standing with their hands behind them or clasped primly in front and eyes cast down is quite erotic. As the girls leave the room, we get a nice side-view of their wonderful figures.
The Communist insists on an "exemplary punishment and banishment from school" but the School Director recommends leniency. Meanwhile, Bozenka tells the teacher she fears she will be executed like her father. They return and it is decreed they will be punished in a way common at capitalist schools (due to their capitalist "leanings"), namely the cane, rod, birch or whip. The school director says they should be grateful for this "lenient" punishment.
All four are ordered to remove their skirts and panties. Watching the girls' embarrassment as they shed their clothes is a nice erotic turn-on. Bozenka stops and says, almost crying, that she has nothing on beneath her slip. We get to watch as she strips totally displaying her wonderfully sexy figure. She tries to cover herself with her hands but is ordered to put her hands at her side. A series of wonderful face-close-ups of the humiliated girls follow; Bozenka is weeping. It is decided that Bozenka will be caned first, then the other three, and then Bozenka again because she is the ring-leader.
The following side view of Bozenka bent over holding her ankles is utterly delicious! The teacher administers the canings, 30 strokes for each caning. (The Lupus site description says 50 strokes but I only observed about 30). Bozenka' weeping cries as she is caned add to the sensual effect. After about ten strokes, the men tell the teacher to apply the cane with more vigor. Soon Bozenka has trouble keeping her hands around her ankles. By the end she is beside herself with anguish due to what the school Director calls a "lenient" punishment.
And all the canings are long and hard. In the style we have come to expect from Lupus Pictures, these are severe punishments; at the end all the girls' bottoms are well-marked with red lines. (They are, however, a bit less severe than the canings in the two Lupus Wild Party movies).
There are, however, two drawbacks about the caning scenes. There is a lack of direct head-on face shots and this detracts somewhat from the impact of these scenes. Also if the three schoolmates had to remove their blouses like Bozenka, it would have improved the "view" during their canings.
Next the curly-hair brunette replaces our heroine to a backdrop of Bozenka sobbing. She has slender thighs and the view of her bent over is great! After the 4th blow she begins to cry out "It's hurting". Next the short blond replaces her. Her caning hurts so much she can't keep her hands down and they flutter at her side.
Finally the cute tall black hair takes her place. The school director tells the four girls "Ask your grannies how education hurt in the old days. These are the methods you want back". This girl's cries are the most plaintive and erotic of the four and she cries out "Mummy, please help me". However, the pace of her caning is faster than for the other three, a bit too fast for my taste.
Finally Bozenka is caned again. The view of her suffering with the three now-sobbing classmates behind her is quite erotic. At the end the Teacher tells all four to be thankful for the "humane" punishment. All four are dismissed from the Pioneer communist youth group and have to remove their symbolic red scarves. (I wish they would take their blouses off too.). They put their clothes back on. As they all enter the school lobby, the black-coated Secret Police, ask for Bozenka, put handcuffs on her, and drag her away saying "You would not believe how felonious these types are." The Communist is obviously behind this new humiliation for the poor girl.
The movie ends with stirring Stalinist-era choral singing which also was used earlier in the production to good effect. The wonderful sets and costumes add to the recreation of the Communist period in Czech history, a period not so far in the past that it has been forgotten by the Lupus production team.
This video finishes a bit soon at 35 minutes in length. But, fear not, there is a sequel coming, again starring the wonderful Katerina Tetova, this time exposed to the tender mercies of the dreaded Communist STB (secret police). I give this movie a 9.5 out of 10; it stands out among this year's spanking releases.
The film is set in early 'fifties Czechoslovakia, a dreary and oppressive era, when even top party officials might fall from favour. Slansky and many more were, under torture, about to confess to Titoism, revisionism, anti-Stalinism, and spying for the West, and would depart the show-trial arena to be hung, only to be posthumously pardoned a few years later when Stalin's ghost, with Khruschev in pursuit, had departed over the horizon. It was bad enough for these unfortunates, but not much better to be a wife or child of one of them.
Therefore when a newpaper is discovered in a new state-run school, with a photo of Stalin unofficially adorned with a Jesuit's beard and a crucifix, the ring-leader of the gang of four who perpetrated the crime is assumed to be the one whose father has been executed for Trotskyism. Naturally when the other three are deemed to merit fifty strokes of the cane she gets double that, in two doses.
Of course the cane had been abolished under the new regime in which the hands and minds of the worker brigades were to be educated with Marxist sweetness and light, but the plot neatly re-introduces this implement by suggesting to the girls that if they are such great anti-communists they will be happy to be chastised in the way their grandmothers were in the evil capitalist institutions of the past. Fortunately a cane is to hand having been recently inspected, but not used, in the political and historical studies class.
It is applied with splendid efficiency by Alexandra Wolf playing the girls' form mistress, under the eye of Pavel Stasny as the headmaster (wearing a collar and tie, a less than enthusiastic supporter of the new regime), and the inevitable political commissar of the type attached to all institutions to ensure obedience to the party line (Maxmilián Schubert, in an open neck shirt). That the latter would abuse their positions is salaciously pointed up when the girls undress to reveal smooth shaven mounds: these are immediately denounced by the commissar as evidence of capitalist decadence, instructions are issued that normal growth will be immediately resumed - and he himself will inspect the results every week when the girls strip for gymnastics.
They are played by Katerina Tetová (putting a tearful, now unmasked, face to the bottom we saw soundly birched in Warlock), Erika Zajícková and Jirina Horvátová, both new bottoms on the scene, one of whom reveals the effect of a sound caning on a darker skin), and blond petite veteran, Jitka Malá, who barely manages to thole her severe punishment, thus confirming that familiarity with the cane does not diminish its sting. Tetova, playing the deceased dissident's daughter, receives twice fifty strokes, but is still carried off by the secret police. Her fate in their notorious dungeons is to be revealed in a sequel. The Czechoslovak security service had the initials StB, the Russians themselves had the GPU, NKVD, and KGB. Every puppet ruler in the Warsaw Pact sought to protect his person, and secure his place in history (eg "History will forgive us!") by toadying to Moscow with the obsequious assistance and brutality of similar combinations of letters such as STASI (German Democratic Republic), AVO (Hungary), KDS (Bulgaria), etc. The names these sinister initials variously represented, however, could always be roughly translated as "department of homeland security" - citizens of the UK and US, beware!
Once again Lupus have sought to release the cp genre from the confines of the standard schoolroom, domestic, office-type scenario, and have succeeded by setting this schoolroom in a branch of the "evil empire" to which they have unique access, many of their more senior producers and players having had first hand experience of knuckling under the alien authority of their fellow Slavs from the East. This film, in several nice touchs, reveals the suppressed defiance which was so often expressed in ambivalent sarcasm (eg. says the schoolteacher, straight-faced, to one of the girls regarding the "merciful" qualities of the regime: "That's why we love it so much.").
The opening and closing credits come up over grainy pink-toned monochrome, and Johan Bruner's tinkling piano has been replaced by rousing propaganda choruses accompanying archive footage of Stakhanovites labouring in the fields and steel mills, all under Stalin's benevolent gaze. But this is no more than proof of the cinematic skills and artistry which have gone into the production. Corporal punishment remains the theme and its application the entertainment. 250 strokes could become monotonous but not when each and every one lands with a resounding thwack, and evokes it unique, but incremental result. The girls are not bound down but are commanded to grasp their ankles, controlling their physical responses as best they can. Every stroke produces a different, unrehearsed reaction: a hand will be gripped between the legs, or will support the head, or both will involuntarily reach round to shield the target, while the torso squirms, and the buttocks quiver, and all the while the tears spill and the howling increases in pitch. The political satire does no more than provide the framework for these extremely satisfactory canings, but it enhances the reality.
This is one of the best yet to come out of the Lupus studios.