Delinquent Schoolgirls is hardly a remarkable film but if you like scuzzy exploitation films, there's enough going on to keep fans of the depraved happy.  Predictably, given the title, it is wrong on many levels.  Today, unless it was a) produced by three men with a video camera, or b) put into somekind of justifiable context, you just wouldn't get a film about three escaped mental patients raping their way through a girls' school.  Back in the 1970s there certainly weren't any qualms about making such a sensationalist picture.  In fact, before the profitable formula for the 1980s sex comedy had gained roots, films like this one were ten a penny.   Just like the over appreciated The Last House on the Left, innapropriately flippant comedic music is played over scenes of savagery and it shares a similarly squalid outlook.  To be fair, unlike The Last House on the Left, at least Delinquent Schoolgirls doesn't make any pretence to deliver somekind of social statement. 

Kick back and delight in the misogyny, see-through swimsuits and bra sizes to put Russ Meyer to shame, and soak up the general leering nature.  At the end you'll be rewarded with a striptease audition for the most suitable hostage, followed by a Kung-Fu showdown in the gymnasium.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is one fucked up movie.  Watching this shit can't be good for the soul...

I'm not a huge Russ Meyer fan, so I approached The Seven Minutes with a fair amount of apprehension; I was expecting something titillatingly kitsch but ultimately boring.  Early on I was pleased to find myself engaged with the conspiratorial obscenity trial storyline and was also just enjoying the seventies campness of it all.  I was particularly happy when a young Tom Selleck appeared onscreen as the head of the publishing house (fuck you Magnum, PI!).  Okay, I don't want to over sell this, it's not a great film by any strech of the imagination, but the frequent attempts by corrupt politicians and officials to quash any investigation and the absurd trial itself, means it more or less carries its two hour running time without becoming too dull.  It's far closer to a conventional drama than your typical Russ Meyer effort, which as far as I'm concerned isn't a bad thing.  That said, the occassional flashes of Meyer trademark salacious and surreal camera angles (and the obligatory cast of huge breasted women) increases the oddity factor, whilst reminding you who's at the helm.  At the end of the film there's a satisfying monologue on the merits of freedom of expression, just incase you hadn't already picked up on the theme that the film had been hammering home the whole while.   Stick it to the man!