Having recently finished my third ’80s Teen Flick Festival guidebook, I’m still blown away by how many films during that decade were all about teenagers growing up during the decade. I’ve covered around 200 films. It turns out there’s even more. One that I didn’t know about was Just Jaeckin’s Girls. This is a movie about four teenage girls in Paris enjoying the City of Light after dark. If Just Jaeckin’s name sound familiar, he’s the director behind Emanuelle, The Story of O and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. His version of a teenage girl’s life doesn’t turn that kinky, but Girls is a bit more adult than an After School Special.
Catherine Flavin (Le Femme Nikita‘s Anne Parillaud), Annie (Les filles de Grenoble‘s Zoé Chauveau) and Suzanne (Le débutant‘s Charlotte Walior) have recently graduated girls. They’re enjoying their new adult life in Paris. They had regular day jobs, but at night they aim to set the disco scene on fire. They also like sneaking into the cinemas to watch films for free. Joining up with them is Suzann’s sister Betty (Scanners II: The New Order‘s Isabelle Mejias) who is still in school. These girls are a bit wild. They have no problem taking the air out of a sportscar’s tires. Or teasing boys and men of various ages. They are living and loving dangerously. Catherine seems to have a bit of mystery about her as she acts as ringleader of her little pack and acts the most mature. The main plot point in the movie is when one of the girls gets in serious trouble and it’s up to her friends to come up with a large amount of Francs. A few of them decide to raise funds in a very unorthodox manner that leads to even more troubles for them.
I read someone comparing Girls to the Jodie Foster classic Foxes. Both movies are about high school age girls growing up extremely fast. This is a case where neither could have inspired the other. It’s more of a zeitgeist moment since Foxes came out February 29, 1980 and Girls arrived in Paris theaters on May 7, 1980. Neither film influenced each other. Even a certain plot point in Girls (that I won’t disclose) wasn’t lifted from Fast Times At Ridgemont High since that was two years away and Cameron Crowe’s book was a year from publication. Girls exists without any help from Hollywood.
Girls did come out in Canada during 1981 because of Canadian actress Isabelle Mejias (Meatballs III Summer Job – which is covered in my latest book). But the movie doesn’t appear to have found an US distributor. It’s easy watching the film to imagine Girls could have been a hit on the art house circuit during the golden age of teen flicks. This is a very arty film that could have appealed to the more sophisticated upper classman with a fake ID to get into R rated movies. I’m going to guess that no distributor wanted to deal with the expectations of audiences when they hear about a movie about teenage girls for the director of Emanuelle and The Story of O. The moral majority would have been so eager to picket the film as smut without buying a single ticket to see what goes on with the teenagers.
It is great that Cult Epics has released Girls after all these decades. Just Jaeckin had a short career as a feature film director with 7 movies over a decade (ending in 1984 with Tawny Kitaen in The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak). Now all of Jaeckin’s feature films are available in North America.
The Video is 1.85:1 anamorphic. The 4K Transfer restored from the original negative brings out the colorful joy of Paris fun in this era. The Audio is French DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono. You’ll hear the bouncy score clearly. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary by Jeremy Richey is on both the 4K UHD and the Blu-ray versions of the film. He gives quite a bit of background on the cast and crew He talks about the American iconography on the screen. We learn about the soundtrack.
Blu-ray has the restored version of Girls along with all the bonus features.
Who is Just Jaeckin (18:23) is a video essay by Jeremy Richey about the filmmaker, photographer and artist. We get the history of him the visionary who did get viewed by many as only the director of Emanuelle.
Last Interview with director Just Jaeckin (16:54) was recorded shortly before his death in 2022 at the age of 82. He talks about how Girls is one of his favorite films. He learned how to make a fast film and shoot in low light. He explains how when he got out of feature films, he became a major director of commercials. But that burned him out around 2000. He chose to focus on his life and art.
Interview with actress Isabelle Mejias (20:48) has her explain how she was a high schooler who wasn’t eager to get into acting. On a lark, she auditioned when the casting director visited her school in France. She got the part. She did think at one point Just Jaeckin wasn’t happy with her since he had her riding on the back of the motorcycle instead of her stand in.
Archival interview (4:39) has Just Jaeckin, Anne Parrilaud, Zoé Chaveau and Charlotte Walior sitting on a giant sofa at TFI in 1982. Just talks about how Charlotte got her role. Anne spoils a mystery about her character that I won’t. Someone is on the sofa with an accordion.
Girls: The German cut (25:59) is interesting because it turned out that to appease the West German distributor, they had to have a German actor play the role of Jerome. Just Jaeckin shoot the same scene twice with French actor Philippe Klébert and German actor Claus Obalski tagging out. Obalski had become hot in West Germany with Summer Night Fever. These are all the scenes with Claus as the character and the cast dubbed in German. You also get the German titles.
Theatrical Trailers includes Madam Claude, The Island Closest To Heaven, The Key, The Debut and My Nights With Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie.
Cult Epics present Girls. Directed by Just Jaeckin. Screenplay by Just Jaeckin, Géza von Radványi & Jean-Luc Voulfow. Starring Anne Parillaud, Zoé Chauveau, Charlotte Walior, Isabelle Mejias, Christophe Bourseiller, George Bürki, Philippe Klébert, Ludwig Abrahami & Jean Dalmain. Running Time: 95 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: April 21, 2026.
The limited-edition Pink Slipcase:
