At 92 minutes long, this 1991 film is labeled as a short film, which is quite interesting considering most movies meant for children are around this length. This is marketed as a “Freaky Friday” movie from Germany. We get to know Emma, a swimmer whose mother expects her to become an Olympic athlete. Her friends like playing games of magic and fantasy, which leads to a spell being placed on her and one of her classmates and they switch places.
The copy of Hilfe! that I own is a US-format (Region 1) DVD, but the subtitles are unable to be removed. It’s most frustrating because, like many other movies, the very light German swears, which could be translated simply as “curses” and “crap” are translated to much harsher swear words. The translators really didn’t do well for this film on that.
Because Germans, like most Europeans, don’t view nudity as negatively as Americans, having nudity – especially in a non-sexual context – in a children’s (/tween) movie is not necessarily surprising. This particular scene fits the plot (emphasizes the issues of having to trade places with a person of the other gender), but can be easily skipped. Mickey (in Emma’s body) first opens the door for the men’s locker room, where we don’t see anybody. We hear a man yelling that he (/she) is in the wrong locker room. That’s when he opens the door to the girls’ locker room. The scene lasts for 1-3 seconds. Most DVD-players should be able to skip this without issue, or it can be edited out.