It is a very unsual and niche (sub)genre of movies. But it is definitely out there. It seems more common in European cinema than American, and it more commonly involves boys and older women, though there are some exceptions.
First, we have 1971 British movie “Summer of 42”, which involves a 15-year-old boy having an affair with a middle-aged woman whose husband has gone off to fight in the WWII (the age of consent in the UK having been 16 since 1885).
Then there is a 1995 Swedish war drama “All Things Fair” (“Lust och fagrig stor”), about a 15-year-old student having an affair with his High school teacher. The movie ends with him flashing her in front of the whole class, stealing her books and walking away (seriously).
Perhaps the most famous example is 2000 Italian erotic drama-comedy “Malena”, about a 12-year-old boy who falls in love with a war widow (portrayed by Monica Belucci). This one is dubious simce they never have sex, and the boy doesn’t even talk to her until the end of the movie, but the sexual element is obviously there.
And then there is a 2008 romance drama “The Reader”, where a 15-year-old boy statts a relationship with an adult woman, who is later revealed to be an ex-Nazi officer. This one is also a bit dubious since it doesn’t actually take place during WWII (their affair starts in 1958), but the WWII is obviously a central theme.
So, what is the reason/origin behind this? Is it because WWII is seen like an ultimate “innocence lost” (globally), so that seeped into the movies as well, in the form of illicit/inappropriate age-gap romances? Or was the first movie to tackle this subject so good that many others tried to emulate it? Or are these just coincidences?
Looking beyond movies, there’s Jonathan Safran Foer’s Holocaust-themed novel Everything Is Illuminated, where a boy becomes romantically involved with multiple older women. (I don’t think this plot point made it into the film adaptation.)
I’d balk at your description of Summer of '42. She wasn’t middle aged and they didn’t have an affair. He had a crush and they had one encounter that, IRL, didn’t include actual sex.
It did in the book. Don’t remember how they handled it in the movie.
Her (husband? boyfriend?) died in the war, she got the “Greetings” letter in the mail telling her so, main character comes in, she’s distraught and gloms him, calls him by the boyfriend/husband’s name and hauls him to bed.
Nothing like a trend that looks at the hundred thousand movies made since World War II by the entire production of all movie studios in the entire world and finds one actual example.
There are probably more Lifetime movies on this theme about modern teachers.
Don’t know if some of that is directed at me, but I siad In Real Life, based on the same wiki article.
Although both ultimately disrobed, contrary to popular perception, sexual intercourse did not occur. Raucher admitted this in a 2002 interview, saying it was mostly holding, but in the movie “We let you think what you want.”
“Europa, Europa” - the main character is in his mid-teens and has sex with a Nazi matron who is attracted to him because he looks like a young version of the Fuhrer…which is amusing since the teen is Jewish and in hiding as a Hitler youth.
I think it’s reasonable to assume that while the war was on, there was a shortage of available men between ~17-30 in all participating countries. Which is a fairly highly sexed age group for women. And young almost-men looking forward to being drafted into the war as soon as they’re old enough might be real interested in at least trying that sex stuff before they get shipped off to their at least potential, if not almost certain, doom.
The sum of all that is to suggest that in the real world, not the cinematic one, a relative LOT of age-inappropriate but fully consensual sex occurred during the war. Setting aside for a moment the modern question of how much meaning we can attach to the consent of a minor. This would have been far more common than it was pre-war in the same culture or even after post-war demobilization was complete.
Whether the 20-something women were doing the few old men or the few almost-men available, many of them they were doing somebody.
Given that likely open secret, it’s hardly surprising it showed up in a few movies. IMO it’d be more surprising if it didn’t. As said upthread, I think these few movies represent a rather tiny fraction of all wartime films.
I also think that in the 1930s - 1950s the laws on age of consent and statutory rape may have been written gender-neutral in some (many?) countries, but I really don’t think they shared our current attitudes about just how outré and wrong is sex between underage pre-men and adult women.
Canada’s most definitely were not. See the Criminal Code, RSC 1927, with extensive coverage of males having illicit sexual relations with young women.
At least, illicit sexual relations with young women of “previously chaste character”. Not a virgin, young lady? Well, too bad, but the law can’t help you. Short of rape, maybe.
Unless under 14; “previously chaste character” was not a required element of the offence for those young’uns. Unless they were married to the fellow, of course. That was a full defence.
But what about the boys? Got them covered:
It was apparently an impossibility in law for a female to indecently assault a male.
Thank you. And Canada was probably one of the more foresightful and civilized countries on Earth at that time.
Overall I find the OP’s framing of the issue as “statutory rape” to be wildly excessive. We now have wildly excessive concern about this in 2023 and trying to export that current moral panic to 75 years ago is even nuttier.
To expand on that last point, I don’t think these provisions requiring “previously chaste character” for girls to be protected from predatory adults were abolished in Canada until the late 1970s.