THE BEST-KNOWN DIRECTORS of the Young German Cinema—theburgeoning art cinema movement in West Germany inthe 1960s— later became the internationallycelebrated auteurs of the New German Cinema in the1970s and early 1980s. Funded largely by the newlyestablished Kuratorium junger deutscher Film (YoungGerman Film Subsidy Committee), the early featurefilms of Volker Schlondorff, Alexander Kluge, RainerWerner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, and Edgar Reitzbroke from the traditions of commercial genrecinema—mockingly dubbed “Papas Kino” (Daddy'sCinema) by the young directors—that had dominatedthe West German film industry since the 1950s. Whilescholars have tended to focus their attention onthese directors, the films of many others in theYoung German Cinema movement have been ignored,including the so-called Neue Munchner Gruppe (NewMunich Group), a small group of filmmakers based inMunich's hip Schwabing district. First identified asa group by film critic Enno Patalas in 1966, thesedirectors— among them Rudolf Thome, Klaus Lemke,Eckhardt Schmidt, May Spils, and RogerFritz—rebelled against the abstract intellectualismand serious sociohistorical criticism endorsed bytheir better-known peers. Inspired largely by theFrench New Wave and Hollywood B-films of the 1930sand 1940s, the New Munich Group directors optedinstead for simple stories, fashionable youngprotagonists, visually appealing settings, and rock‘n’ roll soundtracks.

This essay examines the New Munich Group film Mädchen mit Gewalt (1970;Girl with Violence), which was released in Englishas The Brutes andLove by Rape in 1970and as Cry Rape forits 1975 rerelease in the United States. Shot inEnglish and later dubbed in German, the film wasdirected by Roger Fritz, known also for his work asproducer, actor, photographer, journalist, andcofounder of the popular West German youth magazinetwen. The last filmin Fritz's so-called Madchen-Trilogie (girltrilogy), Mädchen mitGewalt centers on the abduction and rapeof a young woman named Alice, played by Fritz's thenwife, Helga Anders, by two men over the course of anevening in a gravel quarry on the outskirts ofMunich. On its surface, the film seems to offer uslittle more than a misogynistic rape fantasy andsexploitation, a popular style in Europeanlow-budget cinema that became especially popular inWest Germany with the Schulmädchen-Report (schoolgirl report)film cycle.