Salon Kitty (Director's Cut) [DVD]

Yes that's basical it; find an excuse to legitimize a porn movie. Pretend you are dramatising a War drama about the Nazi's. After all Nazi's, particulary the SS, make for good fetish foder.How well they did it begs the question.Facts: Well yes Salon Kitty did exist and was liscensed by the Nazi's, and they did uses it to spy and eves drop on their own officers to find out who couldn't keep secret what they knew and also who revealed themselves to being defeatist or anti Nazi. A few drinks inside them and a desire to impress the girl in bed with them, or an uncontrolable desire to get their deep fears and anxieties off their chest by telling a whore who's not really listening anyway, only she is, and not just her but microphones in the walls with recorders in other rooms.How much of the rest is true is anyones guess.As a movie it's typical seventies commercial soft porn, as a drama it slightly better than most others in this genre but compared to a larger studio production it's obviously a low budget independant with all the negative poor production values you'd expect.

After watching the movie I asked myself "Why the hell did I buy it?" And I did not find an answer as yet! Here my unfiltered impressions:The first 30 minutes are disgusting. Is this what humans are capable of? – Since the movie is based on a true story the answer has to be Yes! And it did and does happen in situations of uncontrolled abuse of power where the means are only justified by he ends.Using the playing field of a brothel in the third Reich the movie describes power plays between humans in various positions of power.On the lower end of power is the blind follower of ideology presented by the Nazi girls donating their bodies/dignity to the greater cause. On the upper end is the SS officer Wallenberg, who is given the power by the system and who also uses it for his own personal wants. (Which, by the way, any person in real life does, only with different means.) Watch Kitty the saloonkeeper, how she plays along in the beginning to keep her standing, not without claiming high level power connections. There are the salon customers who are unknowingly giving away their power sources by giving in to their sexual desires.To which genre does this move belong? There is plenty of nudity, some suspense and not too much action. Even though some of the girls are quite beautiful I could not enjoy the nudity, since some of it is just repulsive.The picture quality is mediocre. Small parts of the sound track are in Italian.To me the best element of the film is, that is thought provoking. Should you be interested in the key topic of the film, namely the use and abuse of power, I recommend the book “THE DICTATOR’S HANDBOOK”.

BLU RAY RELEASE: One of the more professional films of the genre, Tinto Brass gives a credible, even somewhat restrained, feel to the subject. Some of the female nudity is, apart from its obvious beauty, tantalising without being leering or excessive - although, if memory serves correct, I didn't quite understand why they were seemingly portrayed as dominant over the selected captured men they were to have sex with. Atypical of the majority of films of this type, picture quality on this BD is crisp, clear and with excellent colour balance - well done the distributor for letting the original camerawork shine through. The extras include an interesting interview with the Director speaking in English, and some tantalising trailers of other releases - the film concerning a nunnery looked, how shall we say, quite appealing. Would I consider buying further films directed by Tinto Brass? Yes! An enjoyable film if you enjoy this subject but, despite the hype, this shows little to be shocked about in the 'naughties (2000s) which is why I give it four rather than five stars. A harder edge to the film would have secured full marks.

The two star rating concerns the terrible blu-ray transfer:Image clarity and color stability are inferior to the Region 2 DVD I own.However, the sound of the blu-ray edition is markedly improved.To the film itself, I give 4.5 stars:Based on the historical fact of a high-class Berlin brothel that wascontrolled by the SD, director Tinto Brass created a provoking anddisturbing essay on the corrupting, degrading, and de-humanizing effectof absolute power over people.As he explains in an interview about the film, you cannot comment onextreme situations, without being extreme in your imagery.The slaughterhouse scene is pivotal in understanding what the filmsays about Fascism: Partly visible, and spattered with blood, is the infamousconcentration camp motto "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work sets you free).Then there's the boudoir scene where an SS prostitute indulges theperversions of the powerful elite, while images of Leni Riefenstahl'sNazi paean "Triumph des Willens" (1935) are projected on the wallsand over the girl's naked body. Triumph Of The Will (DVD) 2010 And there's the scene with the Jewish boy and his parents who visit an aquarium,although proscribed by the Nuremberg Laws.The boy accidentally drops his wind-up toy at the feet of a bevy ofBund Deutscher Madel (Hitler Youth)girls. The leading girl, staring hatefullyat the tearful eyes of the boy, steps on his toy.The film's superb production design by Ken Adam of "Barry Lyndon" famecaptures the decadent, Art Nouveau ambience of 1930's Germany,and the cold,inhuman aesthetic of Nazi design.As in Luchino Visconti's "The Damned" (1969), Helmut Berger again givesa powerful performance as an ambivalent, immoral and ambitious Nazi cadre. The Damned [DVD] [1969 ]

Classic film portraying the sordid events of the time in Nazi Germany. The DVD has exvellent picture quality and sound.