Salon Kitty

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Sick, demented and perverted trash. Watching this film left a bad taste in my mouth. Many of the most demented scenes ever put on film. Hard to believe that the actresses allowed themselves to be degraded making this piece of human waste. Enough said. This is Pure Trash!

What i like in tinto brass's films is the nudity of beautiful women.CHEEKY,ALL LADIES DO IT,PAPRIKA and FRIVOLOUS LOLA, just to name a few,really delivers the merchandise. But not every film by brass delivers the scenes lovers of the female form crave for. Sometimes the * scenes are too few and the actress's look is pretty dull like in THE KEY,MIRANDA or many of the TINTO BRASS PRESENTS segments. Other times, there is too much bloody violence like in CALIGULA or in SALON KITTY. And sometimes Brass puts too much male genitalia or gay characters in his films. (Zero gay characters is pretty much what would be acceptable to me!) PAPRIKA had a strong storyline and plenty of female nudity but the scene where a younger man has sexual intercourse with an older man made me want to throw up! Some of the excessive violence in SALON KITTY consists of slaughtered pigs,a scene featuring a woman who died of a self induced abortion and a blood stained mirror after the shooting of a man. The producers thought the blood stained mirror was so beautiful that this scene is even featured in the trailer! Normally my thoughts are that male genitalia should only be featured when a man is about to make love to a woman.Here there's the dancing men with women 's dress lifting their skirts and a * made of bread. None of this was appealing to me. The main female star in this film is Theresa ann savoy. She's pretty and steals every scene in which she's in. I also liked the scene where about 15 women are standing naked side by side after getting undressed. I don't remember seeing a shot like this in any other films & i've seem a lot! When you strip this overlong film of it's gore, it's cabaret singing & dance scenes,it's ugly people having sex scenes and concentrate on the Theresa ann savoy story which involves the killing of a man she loved and her plan for revenge, there 's a good story here somewhere for sure but you've got to watch a lot of unappealing stuff to get there!

Up until things got ugly, war-torn Europe must have been an interesting place to be, if we're to believe the environment presented in Salon Kitty: sex, debauchery and feasting in full force, with little care for tomorrow. Looks OK to me. The curtains open to nasty Nazi Helmut Berger overseeing medical experiments in the name of racial purity; then, in the name of the Fuhrer, he gathers an excellent sample of pretty young things to put into action an orgy of epic proportions. All this would appear to be in the name of having a good time, but their claim is that they've got the future of their nation on their minds. Berger then subjects the ladies to degrading acts to weed out the weak; this treats the audience to scenes of intimacy with a brutish monster, a humpback, a corpulent, a gypsy and of course a Jew. Well-paid, free spirited Ingrid Thulin celebrates the war on Poland at her house of sin until Berger has it shut down. The Nazis give her new girls to work with, in the name of Adolf, but she finds them too dull and pure. Nevertheless, she goes to work, unaware that the Nazis are using the bordello to eavesdrop on their officers. Innocent upper-class recruit Teresa Ann Savoy begins to develop a relationship with officer John Steiner, unfortunately shot as a traitor after her Nazis learn of their conversations. This brings her to Berger's attention, who forces her to indulge in moral misbehavior with his wife Tina Aumont. The girls begin to revolt against the oppressive Nazis as the film concludes in a flurry of sex, death and steambaths. I can't think of any non-pornographic film that contains quite so much nudity as Salon Kitty. As accomplished in Salo with notably greater ease, Brass tries to inundate his film with enough conceptual content and political intrigue to avoid being sequestered in the nudie film ghetto . Unlike standard erotically charged cinema, it starts off slow, relying primarily on suggestion and gore. However, once Berger parades the line of young ladies into their headquarters, the sex doesn't stop. Surprisingly little of the nudity is appealing. Salon Kitty appears far more interested in the connotations of the bare flesh than in the prurient appeal of women's bodies. Some symbolism reeks of the obvious; few self-respecting filmmakers would put a shot of pigs being slaughtered early in a film about Nazi debauchery. Brass seems more at home relishing in the visual appeal than criticizing the activities. Much of the sex will not appeal to fans of straightforward erotica, or even *. The image of a woman humiliating a man for wearing a pubic wig may have its audience, but it's a relatively minor, *-inclined one.

SALON KITTY is a strange slice of Nazisploit cinema. It's a film that starts off high on the sleaze-meter, but gradually evolves into a serious "period-drama" - and in my opinion - this is what kills the film. The first half-hour or so get you psyched up for a raunchy and perverse exploit film, but as it goes on, SALON KITTY turns into a romantic drama and serious war film. That's not to say that I can't enjoy a serious film, but that's not what I was expecting going into this one... SALON KITTY is actually the name of a whorehouse, run by a madame named (you guessed it...), Kitty. The Nazi's shut down her house-of-ill-repute and set her up with some new digs, complete with surveillance devices in the girl's rooms for spying on their fellow Nazi comrades in order for power-hungry Helmut to get the dirt on his pals. Meanwhile, Margherita and a bunch of other SS sluts are handpicked to be ho's for the new salon (keep an eye out for the cross-eyed freak from SALO as one of the salon patrons...) - and it's their duty to service the high-class clientele. Margherita ends up falling for a Nazi pilot who decides he wants out of the Reich - and this causes problems all-around. Eventually, Margherita is pitted against Helmut in a life-or-death power struggle of lies and betrayal... First off - SALON KITTY is actually a very good film. The cinematography is excellent, the sets are lavish, the acting is all very good, and the storyline is pretty top-notch. The problem is - that if I wanted to watch a serious war drama, I'd watch the DIRTY DOZEN or something. Being that SALON KITTY was from the same man that gave us the epic sleaze "masterpiece" CALIGULA, KITTY is just way too weak for an exploit film. The beginning starts off promising with a Nazi orgy, and a particularly "fun" set of scenes where the "ho's-in-training" are evaluated on their "abilities". This awesome scene includes a chick boning a hunch-backed midget, another chick bangin' a double-amputee, another getting raped by the same nasty scumbag that plays "the Beast" in SS HELL CAMP, another chick screwing a tattooed Gypsy, and one girl trying to blow a concentration camp victim - now that's primo sleaze - but unfortunately, it doesn't last, and although there is still a ton of soft-core sex and nudity throughout, the "serious" plot gets in the way of the fun. Definitely worth a look to exploit/Nazisploit fans - but don't expect too much sleaze - the first half-hour or so is nothing' but a tease...7/10

Of course, it's all done in the worst possible taste. Tinto Brass' "Salon Kitty" is soft, verging on hard, core Eurotrash set in Nazi Germany with something to offend everyone, cineastes probably most of all, particularly if you're not a fan of bad dubbing, (it's said to be in English and is like a porno version of "Cabaret"). Ingrid Thulin is Kitty who runs the salon of the title, Helmut Berger is a typically degenerate German officer and there's a large multi-national cast that includes none other than John Ireland, (did they really think he could sell it to the American market?). Of course, if this is your bag you won't be disappointed and whatever it lacks in taste it makes up for in design. This is a very good-looking 'dirty' picture, the ultimate dirty-mac movie with copious amounts of male and female nudity with both sexes obviously chosen for their physiques and not their acting chops. For explictness it puts Visconti's "The Damned" in the shade and if it leaves you feeling very queasy then I guess you can say it's done it's (really rather appalling) job.

This is the sort of exploitation movie that will please Neo-Nazis and Holocaust Deniers in that it trivializes the Nazis and their crimes. Take away the vulgarity, the full frontal nudity, and the cartoonish Nazis, and you're left with nothing. The makers of the movie know nothing of the history involved, not that they care. For one thing, German Jews did not wear the Star of David " Jew Badge" until September, 1941, but there is a Jewish family at the start of the movie, sometime before 1 September, 1939 wearing them. This is a movie best avoided. Stuart swgreif@hotmail.com

Sometimes when a film relaxes and you relax into it, you can really feel that you are touching the filmmaker. That he is slightly drunk and comfortable and you are experiencing him (or her). That's one place you want to be in your life in films, and it is the basis for many of the film experiences I rate as "must have." But it has all sorts of dangers. The filmmaker must be more than skilled enough to connect, he must be actually interesting, worthwhile, engaged in life in ways that impregnate. There are few films that are well enough sculpted to be entered. And of those, there are few that reward your investing wet parts of your soul to it. You know who the good ones are. Even then, often you'll get what you have here, equal parts of fine wine and flat cola. I suppose it is impossible to be otherwise with Nazi-centered soft *, but Jess Franco (when not drunk) can do pretty well. The good here is that once in a while, you'll encounter some staging with some stark, clear composition and elements that are every bit in the class with Lang or Greenaway. These have ordinary camera positions: non-human in character but human in position. Its the creation of a staged imagination, of dramatic nuance not placed in the actor but in the cinematic frame. (The actors aren't bad, by the way; its just that the weight of the thing isn't on their shoulders — or other body parts.) Some day, commentors like me will be able to provide bookmarks to these scenes so you can experience them without wading through the rotted soup in between. Oh, and that is a ghastly experience, a walk in the dark through greasy fog from one brilliant view through a window to the next. Hey, there's a story, but never mind. Its as irrelevant, stupid and disposable as its sisters, like "Schindler's List," which this resembles in a few ways. And there's some nudity, though in most cases one wonders why. The chief actress is pretty and very German, different from Brasses usual big-bottomed Italian tigresses. I'd really like you to see some of the good stuff here. But like much of Bertolucci, you would curse me for sending you there. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Kitty Kellermann (Ingrid Thulin) runs a bordello for the Nazis in WW2 where numerous atrocities are committed. An army official has bugged the place hoping to usurp power from Hitler. It has amputee sex, midget sex, and hunchback coupling. Bothed home made abortions and it's not a straight out exploitation film, nope not when Tinto "over-rated hack" Brass is concerned. Nope this is an art-house flick through and through. It's also excruciatingly long, impossably tedious and mundane, hopelessly dreary, and given to subject matter, deathly dull. Of course a few years later, Tinto would prove that he could fail on a much bigger global scale with "Caligola" My Grade: D- DVD Extras: Disc 1) Tinto Brass Bio; International and US theatrical Trailers Disc 2) Interviews with Tinto Brass,and Production Designer Ken Adam; 3 radio spots; Poster & stills gallery; Production & Costume designs DVD-Rom: Complete book "the Story of Madame Kitty"

I first saw Salon Kitty in a provincial Scottish cinema with my school pals; nudity was the attraction, and "X" was the certificate. UK Channel 4 recently screened it during their "Censored Weekend" and, as a middle-aged man no longer completely mesmerised by the (considerable) display of rosebud nipples, I was able to enjoy the extraordinary sets and costumes, the operatic staging (production designer Ken Adams - a man of many credits) and the convincing performances of Helmut Berger as the self-intoxicated, onanistic, ruthless, cynical swine who makes the mistake of abusing the indomitable Madame Kitty (Ingrid Thulin - accomplished cabaret turns and remarkable legs for her age). Many interesting things are hinted at but not explored, such as the contest between the Nazi/Nietzschean will to power and the subtle strengths of womankind. Many things are inserted for gratuitous sensation (the schoolboy was appreciative!). The film is what it is - European soft *, an exploitative caricature of history, but well done the makers for giving their smut such a visually memorable vehicle. It was too much to ask for a truly engaging drama as well.