Red Nights of the Gestapo

"One of the aspects that emerges in a study of this kind of cinema is a devolutionary trajectory running from a 'high' or artistically informed culture (which is de facto bourgeois) to a more vernacular cinema that 'reduces' the artistic and intellectual complexities of the antecedents into base forms of exploitation. Following from that, however, when these films are placed within a cinematic historiographic context, a different discourse opens revealing how the Nazi sexploitation cinema engages with the historical period it exploits."

- Ernest Mathijs, and Xavier Mendik. Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema since 1945.

The above quote, for me epitomizes an interpretation of the Italian film industry I've found to be very characteristic. It has been especially helpful in explaining to those unfamiliar with Italian exploitation cinema certain incongruities of style or content. Typically I use the entire quote because it implies, when taken as a whole, the ambiguities which complicate this process of exploitation of themes. To view every excess or irregularity as the direct byproduct of consumer demand, or capitalist impulse, would be to overextend the scope of a useful model for understanding the seemingly absurd choices made in the Italian exploitation films of the 70s and 80s.

Definitions tend to be necessarily ambiguous, but I tend to view the transition from genre films to exploitation films beginning in earnest with the cannibal cycle. One of the features that I use to define exploitation is the aforementioned derivative nature of the majority of the projects. There is a sense that to be commercially successful, a film must exploit the aspects of another picture that made it commercially successful (whether or not this is actually the case). 

One of the myriad reasons Nazi Sexploitation cinema is so reviled is that there is a sense, in viewing these pictures, that the directors looked at films like Salo or The Night Porter and thought to themselves "This could be improved with more exposed breasts". There is no concern that the subject itself is serious, although perhaps this reflects the displeasure of the filmmakers with their subject rather than their lack of knowledge with regard to it. 

If one accepts the concept of a devolutionary track with regard to exploitation cinema the lineage of a film such as Red Nights of the Gestapo would be Salo and Salon Kitty. The film also follows a similar path to Bruno Mattei's SS Girls, with a shift in the ratio of violence to titillation (more breasts, less torture).

 Both Red Nights and Mattei's film start with a conspiracy against the German reich, and a bordello constructed to ensnare those complicit. Whereas Mattei displays a certain self aware goofiness in his Charlie's Angelsesque gaggle of females, Red Night's director Fabio De Agostini (whose sole credits as a director include this film and two others, one of which contains the tagline "The Remarkable Story of a Small Boy Who Belonged to a Giant Dog!")  displays his remarkable ability to retain knowledge from Pscyhe 101 by having each of the prostitutes chosen for pseudo-Freudian traits. One of the members of the "German Intelligentsia" had his mother die at a young age, naturally he gets a lactating woman. Another  is a gluton; he recieves multiple women at once. There's even a disturbing bit where one of the men from the group misses his daughter, so the SS acquire a young (think six-year-old young) girl. Luckily all they do is sit on a bed for about a minute of screen time, before he gets shot by the SS.

Aside from a sub-plot about an SS officer whose wife makes puzzles of Hitler (they had those in the Germany of the 1940s?) and the discovery of a wireless microphone hidden in a cigarette lighter (once again, they had those in the Germany of the 1940s?!), that's about all that happens. The SS captain (or officer, or whatever) tries to get information out of these "German Middle Class Intelligentsia", they force them to sign a piece of blank paper, and then the SS come in and kill everyone, including the SS commander.

Cut to a freeze-frame with an arbitrary fact about the German-Russian conflict, and then "The Sleep of Reagon Creates Monsters". Yeah. The last time I saw a film with a typo that prominent was Ultra Warrior (major points if you've sat through that one).

So that's it. I didn't particularly like the film, but I wasn't as tough a sit as, say,  Gestapo's Last Orgy. The phony bologna psychologist and his untreated sadists, masochists, and nymphomaniacs, are good for a couple laughs, however, on the whole most of the humor is pretty terrible (flatulence humor seems, oddly, to be a common trait of the general nazi-exploitation genre). Overall there was nothing particularly offensive about it (unless you are unsettled by the presence of Italians in Nazi regalia pretending to shag), but there's also little to recommend it. If nothing else, the film is exemplary as a generic case of Italian nazisploitation filmmaking.

-Ryan

Premature Evaluation: Aldo Lado

“Who Saw Her Die?” and “Short Night of Glass Dolls”

Aldo Lado directed these two giallo films, both of which display Hitchcockian influence in visual styling and theme (birds?). Sadly, they drag on forever. Despite fairly interesting plots, they both dwell on the search for the killer which takes few creative detours. Not to mention, these movies both suffer from a lack of beauteous hair and make-upping that many Giallo from the 1970's do so well.

“Who Saw Her Die?” (1972) follows a mustachioed father's search for his red-headed daughter's killer. The daughter dies 30 minutes in, so the first half-hour shows her establishing small but creepy bonds with older men. This film was set in Venice, so Lado takes waterway travel and tries to keep it interesting---the typical movie car chase scene is done by boat! Unfortunately, the next third follows the dad while he interviews all of the older men with whom the daughter established the creepy bonds, which is where the film drags on. The highlights are: the aviary death scene and the religious plot (which you only really discover in the end).


“Short Night of Glass Dolls” offered an interesting variation on a typical giallo set-up, the film opened with the usual discovery of a body, but the body belonged to the protagonist. It is at his supposed death, that the film begins. At first it seems that he is only going to explore the circumstances that led to this predicament, but luckily those circumstances involved exploring the disappearance of his toothy girlfriend. Like “Who Saw Her Die?” the movie's protagonist is a fairly handsome mustachioed fellow, and also like “Who Saw Her Die?” he spends the bulk of the film slowly but surely exploring all of the relationships that the female character established and the actions she took prior to her disappearance.

Though this doesn't seem like it should be as boringly long as it was, 3 out of the 4 people in my company fell asleep. Similar to the other film, the movie took interesting directions in the last 30 minutes of the film; featuring a weirdly spiritual orgy of naked, unattractive old folk (think: Rosemary's baby). Highlights of the film: the orgy/ritual scene, the Prague setting, and the ending. Note: Ryan disliked the ending.

I wish I could find more on Aldo Lado, because it is strange how he fits into Italian cinema. He is from a part of Italy that is now Croatia, so it is interesting to note how this difference in origin affects the casting, visuals, and plot devices he uses. Overall, his films are visually very beautiful and explore interesting ideas. Unfortunately, the pacing is quite painful and requires patience to get to the fun parts.

- Sana