Salon Kitty (film)

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Salon Kitty
Poster
Directed byTinto Brass
Screenplay by
Starring
CinematographySilvano Ippoliti
Edited byTinto Brass[1]
Music byFiorenzo Carpi
Release date
  • March 2, 1976 (1976-03-02) (Italy)
Running time
130 minutes[1]
Countries
  • Italy
  • West Germany
  • France[1]
LanguagesItalian, English, German

Salon Kitty is a 1976 erotic-war-drama film directed by Tinto Brass. The film was coproduced by Italy, France and West Germany. It is based on the novel of the same name by Peter Norden,[2] covering the real life events of the Salon Kitty Incident, where the Sicherheitsdienst took over an expensive brothel in Berlin, had the place wire tapped and all the prostitutes replaced with trained spies in order to gather data on various members of the Nazi party and foreign dignitaries.

It is considered among the progenitors of Nazisploitation genre.[3][4][5]

In the U.S., the film was edited to lighten the political overtones for an easier marketing as a sexploitation film and released under the title Madam Kitty with an X rating. Blue Underground Video, for the uncut version, has surrendered the X rating for an unrated DVD and Blu-ray release.

Plot

Prostitutes in a World War II brothel spy on the customers for a Nazi commandant (Helmut Berger).

Cast

Production

Salon Kitty was filmed mostly at Dear Studios in Rome, with some additional location filming in Germany. Production designer Ken Adam had recently suffered a nervous breakdown while working on Barry Lyndon, and he described his participation in this film as a creatively regenerative one. He has stated that the production was an enjoyable one, and that he feels Salon Kitty is "underrated."[6] Adam based his design of Wallenberg's apartment on his own memories of his family's apartment in World War II-era Berlin. Wallenberg's enormous office, though a set, allegedly features a real marble floor, as it was cheaper to use real marble than create a mock-up version.[7]

Costumes and uniforms for the film were designed by Ugo Pericoli and Jost Jacob, and were constructed by Tirelli Costumi of Rome. Adam credited Jacob with the design of the 'kinky' uniforms that Wallenberg wears throughout the film.[7]

Release

Salon Kitty was released in Italy on March 2, 1976.[1]

Reception

In a contemporary review, the Monthly Film Bulletin found the film to contain "a script that does nothing more than pile up the perversions as fast as possible (the characterisation hardly rises above the stock Nazi heavy while the motivation is consistently, and laughably, crude)" and hoped that "Italian directors will soon examine their recent track record of the atrocities of Nazi Germany (The Damned, The Night Porter, and now Salon Kitty) and abandon the subject for a long while to come."[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Salon Kitty". Filmportal.de. Retrieved January 18, 2016.
  2. ^ Zavattini, Cesare. L'ultimo schérmo: cinema di guerra, cinema di pace. EDIZIONI DEDALO, 1984.
  3. ^ Stéphane François. Le nazisme revisité. Berg International, 2008.
  4. ^ Cult Cinema. Cult Cinema. John Wiley and Sons, 2011.
  5. ^ Dassanowsky, Robert. The Third Reich as Bordello and Pig Sty: Between Critical Neodecadence and Hyperbole of Degeneration in Tinto Brass' Salon Kitty. Nazisploitation! The Nazi Image in Low-Brow Cinema and Culture. Continuum, 2011. pgs. 115-134. ISBN 978-1441183590
  6. ^ Frayling, Christopher (2005). Ken Adam: The Art of Production Design. London: Farber & Farber. p. 207. ISBN 0-571-23109-8.
  7. ^ a b Frayling, p 205.
  8. ^ Badder, David (1977). "Salon Kitty". Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 44, no. 516. British Film Institute. p. 196-197. ISSN 0027-0407.

External links

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