Le deportate della sezione speciale SS

"Deported Women of the SS Special Section" sure provides plenty of sordid details for those who adore the grim, gritty, and nasty side of B cinema. The thing is, it's going to require a fair bit of patience on their part, as this movie is *very* slowly paced.

The story deals with a variety of Jewish women taken prisoner during WWII and taken to a Nazi prison where they're subjected to the expected tortures. There's not much more story than that, except for the longing that ultra creepy camp commandant Herr Erner (John Steiner) expresses for leading lady Tania Nobel (Lina Polito).

There's some melodrama to get through, in between the exploitative moments, accompanied by plaintive music by the talented Stelvio Cipriani. But don't worry, voyeurs, you'll be more than happy with the constant parade of bare female flesh. In loving close-up, no less. We even get to witness as women are repeatedly (and slowly) shaved down below. Of course, there are shower scenes, and lesbian love making scenes. (There's even one male homosexual encounter.) And in addition to all of the female nudity, there's a brief glimpse of the male anatomy as well.

The acting is commendably straight faced. Polito is lovely but rather aloof. Erna Schurer co-stars as Kapo Helga; Solvi Stubing has a great role as a guard. The gorgeous Stefania D'Amario (of Fulci's "Zombie") plays Angela, and Rik Battaglia plays Dr. Schubert. The standout in the cast is clearly Steiner, offering a deliciously depraved performance. This is one kinky guy.

If you just can't get enough of this genre, this movie should prove to be satisfactory. Certainly the Italians were particularly adept masters at this kind of exploitation.

Seven out of 10.

When one watches exploitation films of this genre, one really wants to see things taken more absurd, but this one takes things too seriously. The train cars having a light bulb in them was a startling puzzle. But then, things got more routine. Severe looking woman guards shouting to make sure there was no talking, and the requisite nudity. The Commandant, Herr Erner/Enner clearly was a monster, as some said, but he didn't act like that. His uniform showed attention to detail and he had an obese aide. They threw in some unnecessary liaisons, and that really interrupted the flow of the movie. Herr Enner had a past history with one of the captives, and had a scenario in mind with her that was all too predictable. I felt that everyone was taking the movie too seriously. If one thinks of some memorable movies of this genre, like in the Ilsa series, or even Love Camp 7, they knew what they wanted to be. I am not sure what this movie wanted to be.

For some odd reason I decided to give Deported Women of the SS Special Section a go today and was reasonably pleased. Noticing only one other user comment I felt compelled to give my opinion as well.

The story is fairly easy. A group of women are being held captive in a Nazi prison. Nazi prisons are (as we have all learned in films like Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS and others) is not a happy place. Fortunately you can always take a long soapy shower with your fellow inmates; and they do! I didn't expect much from this one so I became pleasantly surprised. The violence is pretty tame, but the razor blade on a cork in the vagina made me raise an eyebrow as our kinky commandant was about to realize love really can hurt. There's a decent amount of nudity with one of the highlights being the pubic hair shaving, take your time.

Deported Women does remind me to some extent of Salò, although it tends to focus less on the cynical ideology (as most of its kind) giving the whole film a more campy tone. Fine by me. It tries to be a bad boy, but not THAT bad.

In the end I have to say that even though the running time of almost 97 minutes feels a bit too long, the nudity, the violence and the crazy commandant managed to keep me entertained. You could do a lot worse.

NOW we're scraping the bottom of the barrel, as the Nazisploitation genre kicks into gear with a film that's both offensive and snooze inducing, featuring a career low from John Steiner. His terrible acting in fact is the only thing that will keep you awake.

A bunch of women are taken to a special camp to join Ian Curtis and Peter Hook in Joy Division. There's the usual bunch of aggressive lesbians who all want a piece of this and that and aren't averse to having a cat fight in order to find out who is the top carpet muncher on camp. Meanwhile (and I'm struggling here as the plot just sort of ties all the usual exploitation crap together) John Steiner is the guy and charge and he's delighted to find that his ex-girlfriend is one of the prisoners. That's not so lucky for her mind you, ending up in a Nazi camp with an irate ex in charge. Revenge porn kind of pales in comparison.

The relentless barrage of crap in this film involves Steiner trying to get his ex to fall in love with him which invariably leads to her getting beaten and tortured, being forced to witness sex acts (YOU WILL VIEW MY SPECTACLE - Steiner screams), gets it on with a camp guard to make Steiner jealous (whom he bums in the funniest scene in the film), while the other inmates are beaten, showered, glowered at, ogled, tortured and murdered, all done in a rather cheap fashion which causes the viewer to start nodding off.

What was Steiner thinking? Things come to a head when Big John ends up getting little John torn to shreds with a fanny/razor blade combo. What a pile of crap. I'm only watching it because when I set out to watch all these films I figured I'd see how low things got in the Italian film industry. The answer is: very low. Who was this film aimed at? All those escaped Nazis in South America?

And there you have it: My review of The Departed: US Special Edition

As with all these Nazi exploitation films, this is not for everyone. However, for those who do enjoy the genre, this will probably be perceived as a less engaging sample when compared to "The Beast In Heat," "Gestapo's Last Orgy" or the deliciously erotic "SS Experiment Love Camp."

The story here is extremely thin; women arrive at a POW camp where they engage in frequent lesbianism and a tedious plot to escape. The SWV crowd may respond to the grossness of the girl/girl scenes, but other audiences will find these a massive turnoff. Male/female sex is almost completely absent and is of the very tame "huggy-kissy" variety, rather than softcore humping.

John Steiner easily steals the show as the most charismatic performer. He also gets to do something quite interesting when he forces his manservant to submit to him sexually - revenge sex for the manservant's tryst with Steiner's old girlfriend. As so often happens with these films, the producers go out of their way to make the male coupling grotesque by casting a fat, bald, old and ugly actor as the object of Steiner's lust. Notice they did not cast someone hot and youthful, like Cesare Barro, for the role!

All in all this is a rainy day time-waster, okay if you're in the mood but not as juicy and exciting as some of its contemporaries.