Film: Salon Kitty
Year of production: 1976
UK Release date: 30th May 2011
Distributor: Argent
Certificate: 18
Running time: 132 mins
Director: Tinto Brass
Starring: Helmut Berger, Ingrid Thulin, Teresa Ann Savoy, John Steiner, Sara Sperati
Genre: Drama
Format: Blu-ray
Country of Production: Italy/West Germany/France
Language: Italian/English
Review by: Mark Player
Italian filmmaker Tinto Brass has always been a controversial figure within European cinema due to his shameless and unorthodox depictions of the flesh. However, it is perhaps his first erotica film, the Nazi flavoured Salon Kitty (1976), that remains the most transgressive. Heavily censored when first released thirty-five years ago, Argent Films has reinstated and digitally restored Brass' original director's cut for a new Blu-ray release.
When war is declared between the Allies and the Axis powers, Kitty Kellermann's (Ingrid Thulin) high class brothel, Salon Kitty – a popular spot for soldiers, officers and dignitaries of the Reich – is appropriated by the Nazi government for military use. However, in exchange, a high ranking SS official by the name of Wallenberg (Helmut Berger) offers Kitty new premises, as well as a new staff of girls from Aryan stock; rigorously selected based not only on their appearance and sexual liberation, but their political beliefs. Kitty reluctantly accepts Wallenberg's gesture and, soon enough, business is back to normal.
However, unbeknownst to Kitty, Wallenberg has had the new building secretly wiretapped, documenting the pillow talk of party officials who feel that they can let their guard down and say what they really think about the war effort. Wallenburg's girls are also asked to dutifully record their encounters in written reports.
Complications arise when one of the girls, Margherita (Teresa Ann Savoy) – the subject of much perverse fascination for Wallenberg – begins to realise the extent and consequences of her duties when a disgruntled client (Bekim Fehmiu), whom she starts to fall in love with, is eliminated because of his anti-nationalist views...
After initially making shorts and avant-garde features, Salon Kitty was originally offered to Brass as a quick director-for-hire job. Brass accepted, but heavily rewrote the meagre initial concept to incorporate a more politically conscious angle. Strangely, this extra effort to make Salon Kitty more than just another skin-flick feels completely absent. Loosely based on real-life events (the Salon Kitty actually did exist during the late-30s, early-40s and was used for espionage purposes by the SS on their own men), Salon Kitty could've been an intriguing history lesson about the paranoid and volatile nature of the Nazi party's inner-sanctum with some erotica thrown in for good measure. However, this is not the case; the end result being a very long and tedious exercise in overt and senseless naughtiness.
The narrative is robbed of its potential by being not as prominent as a narrative should be. It's not so much placed on the back seat, but in the boot of a completely different car that's heading in the opposite direction. Only the barest glimmer of plot remains, acting as little more than a flimsy pretext for a revolving line-up of SS orgies, nude Nazi-saluting nubiles and other bizarre sexual practices, including a fat middle-age man fellating a phallus made out of bread placed between a girl's legs, to name just one. On that note: Wallenburg's selection process for the would-be whore candidates – some of which was originally cut but now reinserted – is also unorthodox and provocative; pairing the girls off with undesirable sexual partners – a hunchback midget, a Jewish POW, an amputee without legs – to prove their loyalty to the party.
The camera pervily leers and fixates on the skin and (often aroused) genitals of both genders in a seemingly never-ending series of wonky pans and zooms; clumsily spliced together by Brass, who insists on editing all of his films. There is a complete lack of rhythm, and sometimes purpose, from one cut to the next. Some shots last for half a second before being replaced by a fast moving zoom, creating an often frenetic and disorientating effect, designed to be impressionistic but instead feeling inappropriate and amateurish.
Due to excessive and dodgy dubbing into English, performances are difficult to gauge fairly and are laughably bad in places. Ingrid Thulin's involvement in a production like this seems very strange considering her many successful past collaborations with Ingmar Bergman – Wild Strawberries (1957), Winter Light (1961), The Silence (1963) and Cries And Whispers (1972) to name just some – and is given little to do, save for a handful of song and dance numbers, which feel like blatant padding and are somewhat unspectacular. Berger's Nazi official borders on the caricature, spewing terrible lines, whilst Savoy and Fehmiu make for a truly boring screen couple, which wouldn't be as much of a problem if so much time wasn't spent watching their reflections lounge about in bed post-coitus, speaking nothing of value.
The only intriguing prospect in all this pointless titillation is the reinsertion of previously removed footage. These new scenes haven't been dubbed into English, retaining their original language, making it pretty easy to identify what was omitted when the film was first released. On the downside, all this extra footage makes the film even longer – over two hours – which is perhaps Salon Kitty's biggest problem. A streamlined edit of eighty or ninety minutes would've been more bearable, although this wouldn't stop Salon Kitty from being what it is; a shameless exploitation piece that's not particularly interesting, or well made for that matter. Another deal-breaker for many will be a random abattoir scene towards the start in which live pigs are killed and decapitated for absolutely no reason in relation to the plot, but much to the delight of the people on screen.
As for the Blu-ray presentation: don't expect any spectacular visual overhaul or demo worthy presentation. The restorers have done their best with a clearly knackered source and, undoubtedly, despite the film looking every day of its thirty-five year vintage, this is the best Salon Kitty has ever looked on home video. Detail is adequate but not stunning. Colours fluctuate on occasion - one outdoor scene in particular has very noticeable shifts - many within the same shots. There are no overly visible compression artefacts to worry about, resulting in a decent presentation overall.
Salon Kitty is one of Brass' oldest and longest efforts, and one of cinema's true curiosities. A better film is potentially lurking in here somewhere but the mildly interesting set-up is cast aside in favour of copious and laughably gratuitous shenanigans. Fans of Brass' oeuvre will probably find more value here, but, for everyone else, it’s possibly only good for an ironic chuckle over how preposterous it all is. MP
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