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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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5
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10 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Beneath
its public veneer of conservative morals and principals — patriotism,
nationalism, so-called 'family values' — Hitler's Third Reich
was not only evil but decadent and thoroughly corrupt.
Every aspect of German society, from the clergy to the judiciary
to the military, was compromised by its acceptance of National
Socialism. But what of the sex industry? That, too, was suborned
by the Nazis when it could be manipulated to serve the State.
In this purportedly true story (very loosely based on
real events), director Tinto Brass (Caligula)
takes a prurient, highly stylized peek under Nazi Germany's
skirt.
It is 1939, in the months prior to the outbreak of World War
II. Major Wallenberg (Helmut Berger), an up-and-coming SS officer,
receives an unusual assignment from his superior: recruit a
bevy of attractive young women, all faithful Nazis of impeccable
Aryan stock, to serve as prostitutes for the Reich's elite.
But satisfying libidos isn't the real objective. A political
motive lies behind the scheme. Eavesdropping devices will be
planted in the brothel to verify the loyalties of its clientele.
The girls are to dutifully record the actions and statements
of their customers in written reports. The potential for career-enhancing
blackmail is not lost on the ambitious Wallenberg.
Scouring Germany for potential
candidates, he tests the girls by subjecting them to an SS orgy
and a series of 'experiments' that has them forced to copulate
with lesbians, cripples, amputees, mental defectives, and even
Jews. Those that can't hack it are swiftly culled for their
lack of patriotic fervor. Once a sufficient number of girls
are selected the plan proceeds to Phase Two. Wallenberg needs
an expert in the flesh trade to supervise the bordello, one
already known and trusted in the business. He turns to Kitty
Kellermann (Ingrid Thulin), madam of the most exclusive whorehouse
in Berlin, the Salon Kitty. He forces her under his control
by closing down the Salon and discharging her stable of prostitutes,
all by order of the State. Kitty can reopen for business but
only if she takes under her wing Wallenberg's hand-picked girls
and moves operations to a new location, an art deco edifice
that's more "discreet". The place is riddled with
bugging equipment but Kitty is not told about the surveillance
nor of the 'mission' assigned the whores. She takes the deal.
One of Wallenberg's
most enthusiastic recruits is Margherita (Teresa Ann Savoy),
the beautiful, headstrong daughter of an upper-class bourgeois
family. A committed National Socialist, she's willing to cast
off all her inhibitions in service to Hitler. The SS officer
develops a perverse fascination with the girl, cultivating a
twisted Pygmalion-style relationship with his "creation"
—
in effect becoming a sort of Prof. Higgins in jackboots. But
his creation rebels when she becomes involved with one of her
johns, Hans Reiter (Bekim Fehmiu), a Luftwaffe pilot who falls
in love with her. With the war now underway, Reiter has grown
disgusted by the Nazi regime, revealing to Margherita his intention
to defect to the British. Not knowing the brothel is bugged
she lies in the written reports about her lover, never mentioning
his seditious statements. Wallenberg knows differently, of course,
and has Reiter executed as a traitor. But such is his obsession
that he shields Margherita from punishment. Wallenberg now believes
he can do and get away with anything, privy as he is to the
most intimate secrets and perversions of Germany's VIPs. Blackmail
will pave his way to the very highest echelons of power. His
Nazi ideals have become as meaningless to him as the lives he
so callously manipulates and destroys —
just means to an end. Margherita, however, learns of Reiter's
death and that the Salon is bugged. She tells Madam Kitty, who
is outraged by Wallenberg's skullduggery. Together the two women
plot revenge against him, each for their own reasons. He is
to be hoisted on his own petard...
Salon
Kitty has pretensions
of being an art film, one with a message about how, at its core,
fascism is far less a political ideology than it is simple,
institutionalized gangsterism. (Well, duh!) The Wallenberg
character is symbolic of this, a supposedly committed National
Socialist who's ultimately revealed as nothing more than a narcissistic,
power-mad opportunist —
and a mentally unstable one at that. (Showing off to Margherita
his private collection of ridiculously elaborate wardrobe ensembles,
at one point he's seen posing before the mirror dressed in what
can only be described as a Nazi Superman costume, complete with
cape.) To my mind, however, Brass' deserved slam of fascism
is partially undermined by his insistence on portraying the
SS via a barrage of less-than-subtle homoerotic imagery. The
dreaded Blackshirts —
Hitler's ruthless enforcers —
are more likely to be seen
lounging together in the steam bath or performing gymnastics
and skipping rope naked than doing what they truly excelled
at: brutalizing and killing people. Now I don't believe Brass
was consciously attempting to equate Nazism with homosexuality
per se but a sequence early in the film, set in an SS gymnasium
where Wallenberg receives orders from his commander (Tenebre's
John Steiner, in a full-frontal nude shot!), would seem to preclude
any other assertion. It's well known that the leadership of
the Sturmabteilung, or SA (the "Brownshirts"),
included many flagrant homosexuals, but that organization was
violently purged by Hitler (partly for that very reason) in
the infamous "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934. And
it was the SS that did the killing. In the 'fraternity' of the
SS —
which it should be noted murdered thousands of gays and lesbians
for no other reason than their sexual orientation —
being identified as a homosexual was a death sentence. (Steiner's
SS commander is clearly modeled on Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's
right-hand man and one of the architects of the Holocaust. He
was also a serial womanizer... So why is the character, and
to a lesser extant that of Wallenberg, portrayed as so mincingly
effete?) Interestingly enough, the one scene in the film that
brings home the true horror of Nazism doesn't even involve the
SS (nor is anyone naked). A little Jewish boy, identified thus
by the yellow Star of David sewn on his jacket, drops a toy
while touring an aquarium with his skittish parents. A member
of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls)
steps up to him and then slowly crushes the child's toy underfoot,
the ghost of a smile on her lips. The boy's parents stand helpless
in fear and rage. Not a line of dialog is spoken. It's an undeniably
powerful moment.
Would that more of
the film were along these lines. Instead we get a lot of gender-bending
antics courtesy of Madam Kitty's cabaret performances at the
brothel, oodles of sex and nudity (the majority of it very
fetishistic) and the occasional eyebrow raiser, such as the
real slaughter of a pig (disgusting and totally unnecessary),
fully nude sex acts with a hunchbacked dwarf and legless amputee,
and a Nazi bigwig performing fellatio on an edible dildo he
orders one of the whores to hold between her legs. (The point
being...?) Brass veers into almost surrealist territory on occasion;
Goldfinger production designer
Ken Adam's fabulous sets lend the proceedings an air of hyper-reality.
Of the cast, Berger is effective as the reptilian Wallenberg
though Ingrid Thulin completely steals the show as the flamboyant,
larger than life Madam Kitty. The beautiful, innocent-looking
Savoy spends a great deal of her screen time nude. The film
certainly isn't boring, particularly if one has even a passing
interest in the history and twisted culture of Nazi Germany.
(Not to mention naked women and/or men and kinky sex. Salon
Kitty, while not pornographic, contains the most nudity
I think I've ever seen in a non hardcore flick.) But at 133
minutes it's simply too long —
the last two cabaret acts are pure filler that bring the movie
to a screeching halt. And the direction, to me at least, becomes
too stylized for the subject matter at numerous points.
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Loaded
with extras, Blue Underground's deluxe limited edition of Salon
Kitty represents the
first complete director's cut of the film to be seen in North
America. The two-DVD set presents the film itself on Disc 1, along
with the U.S. and European trailers and a text bio of director/co-writer
Tinto Brass, while Disc 2 contains the majority of bonus features.
A/V quality of the anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) transfer is
very good. Some of the reintegrated scenes from Brass' cut don't
look as good as the balance of the footage but all in all this
is a first class presentation. In regards to audio, the viewer
can choose between English —
the added scenes are in Italian with auto-enabled subtitles —
or watching the film entirely in Italian. (English subtitles for
the entire Italian track are but a button push away.) Both language
tracks are in digital mono, with the Italian one sounding somewhat
fuller.
Disc 2 allows one to wallow in the philosophy and artistry that
went into making what must be the classiest "Naziploitation"
flick ever made. Two featurettes are included: a 15-minute interview
with Brass, who dwells more on his concept of the film than the
actual production, and a fascinating chat (18 min.) with designer
Ken Adam, whose art deco sets are the real stars of the movie.
(He goes into more detail about the film itself, and about working
with Brass to bring their vision to life.) Complimenting the interviews
are three substantial image galleries. One is of stills and promotional
materials; the other two showcase Adams' conceptual sketches and
the costume designs of Jost Jakob respectively. Topping all this
off are three U.S. radio spots (the heavily edited version was
retitled Madam Kitty here) and an illustrated, 74-page
DVD-ROM supplement which delves into the real history of the notorious
Berlin bordello. 6/28/03 |
| UPDATE
The 2-disc Limited Edition of Salon Kitty
reviewed here went OOP in 2005. A single-disc version was released
that same year. In November 2010 Blue Underground issued the film
on Blu-ray,
which includes the bonus materials described above. |
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