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So, if you ever stumble upon a grainy AVI file labeled “Shahd – Six Swedish Girls 1980 – fasl alany,” do not watch it for the plot. Watch it for the cultural time capsule. Watch it to hear a prim voice actor say “The combustion engine has ceased function, my Nordic friends” while a pie fight breaks out.
Thus, the film is often searchable online as “Shahd Fylm Six Swedish Girls at a Pump 1980 mtrjm” —a linguistic Frankenstein that perfectly represents the film’s charm. The term "fasl alany" (public/regular season) is key. In the early 80s, Gulf and Egyptian television stations had "open seasons" where censorship was slightly relaxed for late-night broadcasts. During these seasons, a film like Six Swedish Girls would air with minimal cuts but with deadpan, formal Arabic voiceovers .
But we aren’t here to talk about director Erwin C. Dietrich’s original vision. We’re here to talk about the version labeled (translated – regular season). For a generation of viewers in the Middle East during the early 80s, this wasn't just a movie; it was a forbidden, hilarious, and confusing ritual. The “So Bad It’s Good” Formula For the uninitiated, Six Swedish Girls at a Pump is exactly what the title promises. A group of six Scandinavian women traveling through the Alps experience car trouble and end up working at a remote gas station (the "pump"). What follows is a formulaic string of slapstick, nudity, and road trip chaos. In its original German, it’s a tame entry in the "schweizer film" exploitation wave. So, if you ever stumble upon a grainy
Here is a blog post written in that context. By: Retro Reel Digest
To give you a helpful and coherent blog post, I will assume you are asking for a review or retrospective of the 1979/1980 German exploitation comedy Six Swedish Girls at a Pump (original German title: Sechs Schwedinnen von der Tankstelle ), with a special focus on its ("mtrjm") that might have circulated in certain markets during a specific "season" ("fasl alany"). Thus, the film is often searchable online as
3/5 Stars. Terrible film. Legendary translation. Do you have memories of watching dubbed exploitation films during the "fasl alany"? Drop a comment below.
Every so often, a film transcends its own genre to become a cultural ghost—whispered about in forums, traded on worn-out VHS tapes, and remembered not for its artistic merit, but for its bizarre journey across borders. One such relic is the 1980 West German sex comedy, Six Swedish Girls at a Pump . During these seasons, a film like Six Swedish
However, the ( al-noskhah al-mtrjmah ) changed everything. Why? Because the dubbing studios of the era had a unique policy: when it came to "fasl alany" (public season television or rental market releases), they either cut 40 minutes of content or, ironically, left the visuals intact while translating the dialogue with extreme literalness. The "Shahd" Connection You might be wondering about the name “Shahd” at the top of this post. In several surviving bootlegs of the Arabic translation, the main female protagonist (usually played by Brigitte Lahaie) is randomly renamed "Shahd" (meaning "honey" in Arabic). There is no character named Shahd in the original script. This seems to have been a localizer’s improvisation—a common practice to make European names feel more familiar to local audiences.
Imagine the absurdity: A scene where a Swedish girl in a bikini washes a Volkswagen while a Swiss farmer leers. The original German line: “Heute ist heiß, nicht wahr?” (It’s hot today, right?). The Arabic "mtrjm" version for "fasl alany" translates it as: “The atmospheric temperature is elevated, sir. Shall we discuss the fuel pump?”
The audience loses their mind. The disconnect between the visual cheese and the stiff, classical Arabic narration is what turned this film into a midnight legend. Today, original prints of Six Swedish Girls at a Pump are easy to find online. But the "Shahd mtrjm - fasl alany" cut is the Holy Grail for cult film collectors. It represents a specific moment in media history—when Western exploitation films were repurposed for conservative markets not by banning them, but by translating them into accidental surrealism .