Les Nuits chaudes de Berlin

Of all the sordid, exploitative Nazi-era cash-ins that came out of the 1970s, "Salon Kitty" is one of the most regularly-mentioned titles. Director Tinto Brass (who, like Joe D'Amato, is more renowned for his porno epics) spends a great deal of time--arguably 3/4 of the film--garnishing the screen with images of decadent excess, including bizarre sex acts, deformed dwarfs, and copious nudity. Unfortunately, that's really all this shallow, 2-hours-plus venture has to offer. The story line--consisting of a young Nazi commandant (the underused Helmut Berger)'s attempt to seize power by eavesdropping on the SS patrons of the titular character's high-class brothel--would take up all of 30 minutes' screen time (and even that is a stretch) had the exploitation elements been removed. What we're left with, then, is a slickly-made trash pic with high production values, a good cast, and an insufferably drawn-out story (I challenge anyone to still give a damn by the time the film reaches its 'revelatory' crescendo); Brass's attempts at prurient titillation, an underdeveloped (and ultimately pointless) romantic subplot, and the fearless courage of icily unlikable prostitute Margherita (Teresa Ann Savoy) fall completely flat, much to the film's detriment. While not as luridly exploitative as the "Ilsa" trilogy, nor as lethargically dull as Luchino Visconti's "The Damned," "Salon Kitty" never really manages the suspense, pathos, and passion that marked Liliana Cavani's superior 1974 post-Holocaust romance, "The Night Porter." It's a film that should have been much more than just a ponderously average pile of celluloid.

"Salon Kitty" is an exploitation and a serious study of Nazi atrocities...

Kitty Kellermann runs a brothel that provides entertainment to the German elite… Unknown to her, it has been annoyed by a top SS officer to gain incriminating evidence against some of Germany's top general… One of the girls, Margherita, falls in love with a German officer who wants to defect to the Allies… The plot is discovered, and Margherita is used as an informer, but when she tells Madam Kitty about the goings-on in her house, she is outraged and plots revenge…

The film indulges in many of the perversions and sexual humiliations the Germans inflicted on the whores of Salon Kitty...

Tinto Brass directs the film with a heavy hand, focusing continually during the ending sequence to create a hypnotic effect… He doesn't shy away from the atrocities, and often takes intense pleasure in them... The characterizations are very firm and realistic, but the movie's harsh portrayal of much of the sexual activity has kept it out of the mainstream

I'm not really sure what I was hoping for when I rented this movie, but I know I certainly wasn't hoping for what I got here. To be sure, the art direction is extremely good. And sure, there is gobs of nudity and sex almost bordering on hard-core. But despite all this, the movie is BORING, especially at the almost ungodly length of over 2 hours with the recently issued director's cut! While there is an interesting idea with the plot premise, it goes all over the place. Characters come then go offscreen for long periods of time so they aren't really developed, and the little plot there is would probably (at best) barely cover an hour if all the redundant footage was cut out. All the same, pretty amazing Germany would get involved in a coproduction of this nature, and I guess it might be considered an interesting footnote in that it served as a warm-up for Brass' equally bizarre later film CALIGULA.

Outrageous, unsettling, exploitative and courageous, it is also slightly overlong. The current running time at well over two hours is due to the more contentious material being put back in but maybe some other scenes might have been cut to compensate. I love the film, the scenes of debauchery and nudity, male and female, the decadent singing and dancing and the glorious sets by Ken Adam but it is a slight story and as the end draws near it begins to stumble and repeat itself. Always preferable to the much lauded Cabaret there is a real sense of foreboding, of a major calamity and despite the roars and champagne popping at news of the invasion of Poland and later the fall of Paris, we can't help waiting for the biggest crash when the nasty, ugly men in the wonderful costumes get their comeuppance.

An SS officer (Helmut Berger) uses a notorious upscale bordello off the Kurfurstendanstrasse with loyal party prostitutes to spy on its clients for the State. As the war progresses it becomes a place with growing suspicion and paranoia.

Tinto Brass's notorious erotic movie is based off a real bordello that was for a while operated by none other than the high ranking Nazi Reinhard Heydrich. The film of course focuses on nudity and the erotic, but it is also very stylish looking with some wonderful Art Deco sets designed by none other than the great art director famous for his James Bond films, Ken Adam, with costumes designed by Ugo Pericoli and Jost Jacob. In many senses the brothel acts as an analogy and a microcosm on how the war progressed for Germany making it one of the more intelligent Nazisploitation films. Of course it fetishises the Nazis and becomes quite bizarre in places as the film develops.