BEDROOM STEWARDESSES (1978) **

As with Nurses for Sale, Sam Sherman and Al Adamson took a Rolf Olsen/Curd Jurgens movie (in this case, The Doctor of St. Pauli), re-edited it, added new footage, and released it in America under a different title  Unfortunately, their version of the film did not end up on the Al Adamson boxset.  Instead, the Adamson-lensed additions were included as a bonus feature.  I was kind of disappointed by this, since the whole point of buying this boxset was to watch every single Al Adamson movie in existence.  

On the bright side, I found The Doctor of St. Pauli on YouTube and was able to do a double feature of that and the Adamson footage from Bedroom Stewardesses.  The Olsen movie is heavily mired with subplots, so I imagine Sherman and Adamson cut a bunch of stuff out to make room for their new scenes.  After seeing both Olsen’s film and Adamson’s additions, I can kind of piece together in my head what the finished product would look like without too much trouble.  (There are many characters who don’t appear on the 1978 version’s IMDb page, so it’s safe to assume they were left on the cutting room floor.) 

The original version is about a kindly doctor named Jan (Jurgens) who treats the poor and downtrodden.  Meanwhile his brother Klaus (Horst Naumann) is a rich, arrogant gynecologist who is up to his eyeballs in gambling debts.  A woman named Margot (Christiane Rucker) holds parties where women are drugged, forced into sex, and then blackmailed.  Among Margot’s blackmail victims is Klaus’ wife.  When he tries to retrieve the negative, a rash of problems, including everything from malpractice to murder occur.   

Adamson’s scenes (which amount to about eighteen minutes) revolve around a stewardess (Jackie Giroux) who is all excited about going to Europe and being invited to Margot’s party.  Once there, she meets a seemingly distinguished party guest (played by Adamson regular, Geoffrey Land) and they instantly hit it off.  Sadly, for her, he’s a perv who roofies her drink and takes advantage of her when she’s passed out. 

Presumably, we wouldn’t have seen her character again until the very end of the movie when she returns home.  It’s here where her roommate (played by another Adamson regular, Sherri Coyle) picks her up at the airport and asks her how everything went, and she essentially says, “Don’t ask”.  Well, if we’ve learned anything from Adamson’s ‘70s output, it’s that his films aren’t exactly woke.

The Doctor of St. Pauli has way too many characters and subplots that get in the way of the sleaze.  Seeing how Nurses for Sale was only sixty-six minutes (about ten or so of which was Adamson’s footage), I’m sure Adamson would’ve cut the film down considerably.  Since I don’t have access to the Adamson directed 1978 version of Bedroom Stewardesses, I can’t say for sure, but judging from all the footage available, I’d guess they kept all the sex party plotlines and cut out a lot of the subplot involving Jurgens’ brother. 

Either way, neither footage contains anything particularly explicit or hot, but there’s just enough of titillation to keep you watching.  We get a nude Bobby and Cissy routine, topless boating, and a funny scene where a topless combo plays in a nightclub.  However, whenever the depressing drama takes center stage away from the T & A, the doldrums set in almost immediately.

AKA:  The Doctor of St. Pauli.  AKA:  Orgy Blackmailer.  AKA:  Street of Sin.  AKA:  The Bedroom.