SS Girls [1977]

If your drunkest relatives cobbled together five hundred dollars, raided an army surplus store and took over your grandma's house for a weekend to remake "Salon Kitty," it would look a lot like Bruno Mattei's "SS Girls" (aka "Private House of the SS"). Utilizing many of the illustrious actors who starred in his other 1977 Nazisterotica effort, "Women's Camp 119," Mattei shifts the balance from pure sadism to sadistic sex in "SS Girls," slapping together a shamelessly incorrect little flick that functions mainly to make Tinto Brass' film look like high art in comparison.


The structure of the film parallels that of "Salon Kitty:" a high-ranking SS officer is tasked with running a brothel where the hookers will collect secrets from the clients that will lead to a weeding out of undesirables from the ranks of the Nazi party. The officer becomes drunk with his own power and eventually falls victim to his egomania.

Except, instead of Helmut Berger as power-mad SS officer Helmut Wallenberg, we get Gabriele Carrara, an actor as understated as a day-glo fun-fur tuxedo, as Hans Schellenberg. Instead of Ingrid Thulin as Madam Kitty, we get Macha Magall (Dr. Ellen Kratsch from "The Beast in Heat," a film in which she was decidedly not Dyanne Thorne) as Madame Eva.

Salvatore Baccaro reprises his role as Big Rapey Guy In Training Montage, however, and approaches the role with a zeal equal to that which he showed under the guidance of Maestro Brass.


It's hardly necessary to devote much time to a frame by frame comparison of the two films, but my snarkiness compels me to point out a couple of examples. Remember that bit in "SK" when Wallenberg is going around REJECTING and APPROVING girls for service? It looks like this:

Whereas in "SS Girls," it looks like this:

And when the girls disrobe and set to an orgy of Teutonic efficiency, this in "SK":

Which, in "SS Girls," is an extended mini-toga'ed training montage that looks like this:

Those stunning interiors in "SK" with their mirrors and elegant lighting:

...wind up looking like rooms decorated by a very elderly person with an affinity for ceramic collectibles in "SS Girls:"

Then there's the small matter of costuming. Period pieces prove to be a challenge for wardrobers because of the many details that must be recreated. Military uniforms are especially tricky, considering that each insignia on a soldier's outfit represents a specific rank, affiliation, or accomplishment. Why is it, then, that a goodly percentage of the Nazis in this film are wearing uniforms that still bear the insignia of the East German army? Perhaps that's why they're plotting against Hitler--they're actually Communists from the future!

Another soldier has a bald pate and hair well past his collar, making him look like a Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie who lost a bet. His role appears to be escorting around a doberman (who sometimes participates in implied Dog-Woman Love Acts) and cackling maniacally.

The most memorable victims of the spy-brothel are General Oscar, who has gone power-mad a la Colonel Kurtz, and his pals Kominski and Wang (no, really). You can tell Wang is Asian from his nunchucks and samauri sword (no, really), but Mattei has crossed all available digits that you won't notice that his surname is Chinese rather than Japanese and that you're not paying too much attention to his home-made-with-markers headband. The bald-faced comic-book villainry of these guys is pretty stunning to watch, and I'm sure there's a special seat in Hell reserved for me for the proliferation of giggles produced during their screen time. I kinda wanted their S&M hijinx to have "Yakkety Sax" accompaniment.

No discussion of this film would be complete without revisiting the male lead in this film. In a swap not unlike that of Folgers Crystals for fresh-ground coffee, Mattei has cunningly replaced Helmut Berger with Gabriele Carrara, the Jerry Lewis of Nazi Exploitation cinema. Suffice to say, much like the Folgers Swap, the substitution is incredibly apparent and wildly disorienting. That's not to say that Carrara doesn't own his role--he grips it in his teeth, shakes it till its neck snaps, and then devours it in big meaty gobbles. Don't suspect that I tried to capture the actor mugging for the camera--it's impossible not to capture him mugging for the camera! Upon re-watching "SS Girls," I'm made to wonder why Carrara didn't go on to star in more films. His overacting becomes a little charming, and by the time he commits hammy, ridiculous suicide, I was feeling for him. A little. OK--a very little, but still, that counts for something, doesn't it?

While he lacks Berger's icy allure, he compensates in a other ways. Such as "Pulling Champagne Corks Out With His Teeth," a stunt that he pulls at least five times in the film with varying dramatic effects. There's the egomaniacal cork-pull, the cork-off between Schallenberg and Oscar, and ultimately the despondent pre-suicide cork-pull. Bonus points for donning face-paint and a Pope outfit in order to mete out justice to traitors. That's showing... OK, it's not showing class, but it is adding an unnecessary and ridiculous flair to the proceedings, and I give him credit for that.

For sheer, balls-out bad taste, "SS Girls" ranks up there with "the Beast in Heat." It's entirely divorced from anything we know to be quality filmmaking, measured acting, or fine production values, but it's very vileness makes for some pretty compelling film-watching.

View the Flickr gallery of stills from "SS Girls" here. You know, if you're into that.