Film Review: Salon Kitty (1976)

SYNOPSIS:

Kitty runs a brothel in Nazi Germany where the soldiers come to “relax”. Recording devices have been installed in each room by a power hungry army official who plans to use the information to blackmail Hitler and gain power himself. A girl named Margherita discovers the little ploy and with Kitty’s help plans to take on the dangerous task of exposing the conspiracy.

REVIEW:

Directed by: Tinto Brass
Written by: Tinto Brass, Antonio Colatuoni, Ennio De Concini, Maria P. Fusco, Peter Norden, Louise Vincent
Starring: Helmut Burger, Ingrid Thurlin, Teresa Ann Savoy, John Steiner, Sara Sperati

Living in Germany under the Third Reich was not easy for everyone living under Hitler’s tyranny. Believing in the Nazi ideals was not the only task German citizens had to uphold, but complying to their demands and needs under a complete dictatorship. In Tinto Brass’s Salon Kitty, a young woman living in Hitler’s Germany working at a Nazi brothel falls in love with a young man in the service and teams up with the head mistress to rebel against the Nazi commandant in charge.

Salon Kitty begins with a song performed by the beautiful madam Kitty(Ingrid Thulin), and she performs in her showplace called Solon Kitty. Kitty is intricately dressed as a half woman/half man, showing the ambiguously clad crowd that inhabits the club. What Kitty does not know that her world will be shaken when she is forced to leave Solon Kitty to become a madam for a Nazi ran brothel, ran by a demanding commandant Helmut(Helmut Berger). The twenty young females chosen to be lovers to the Nazi soldiers go through a rigorous selection process, including having to have sex with midgets, amputees, and the physically unattractive.

Margherita(Teresa Ann Savoy) is one of the young mistresses that the story majorly focuses on. Helmut is very interested in this young woman, and he is often shown having private session with her. She also has a regular visitor, a Nazi airman who falls in love with Margherita while envisioning leaving the war to continue his relationship with his prostitute. When Margherita finds out that he dies in battle due to foolishness, she becomes motivated to assist with Kitty in the eventual overturn of the renowned Nazi brothel. Unfortunately, some of the woman workers in the brothel are stricken by the sudden deaths of the brothel patrons, and take their lives as well.

Made in 1976 by an Italian filmmaker, I felt Salon Kitty was a sex-laden spin-off of Bob Fosse’s Cabaret, with frequent scenes of Nazi orgies, gracious girl-on-girl action, and generous full-frontal male/female nudity. The sexploitation element of the film solidified the cult status of the flick, with a basis of true life events that happened in German history. Set designs, as well as costuming is a must see to all connoisseurs of World War II German history. Salon Kitty was an actual form of spying the Nazi’s used during WW II, in which they would invite German politicians and foreign ambassadors to be seduced by Germany’s finest women and hopefully produce evidence of traitorous behavior within other country’s armies. There are various bloody slayings that occur throughout the movie, but nothing splendidly gruesome or shocking to outdo the sexploitation theme.

Tinto Brass’s Salon Kitty was made to not only shock audiences, but to entertain and educate viewers on the appalling practices of Nazi dictatorship within World War II. Gratuitous scenes of sexual prowess and sensual musical numbers engraved Salon Kitty into cult movie fans top favorites, with historical prevalence to interest fans of World War II factual events.

Salon Kitty (1976)