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Released by: Intervision Picture Corp.
Released on: June 3rd, 2014.
Director: Cesare Canevari
Cast: Daniela Poggi, Adriano Micantoni, Maristella Greco
Year: 1977
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The Movie:
Cesare Canevari's 1977 film Gestapo's Last Orgy (also released as Caligula Reincarnated As Hitler, which might be the best title ever made for any film in the history of the goddamn universe) owes more than a small debt to Tinto Brass' Salon Kitty but somehow manages to shuffle off whatever class and artistic pretense that earlier movie had in favor of some pretty serious sleaze. Not that Salon Kitty was lacking in that regard, because it wasn't, but Brass obviously had some arthouse intentions in mind when lensing it.
The main storyline revolves around Lise Cohen (Daniela Poggi), a Jewish woman who is sent to a concentration camp comprised entirely of female prisoners, save for the Nazi guards and officers who keep tabs on things, of course. The camp is quite literally used as a brothel, it's a revolving door for German officers to come and go before battle to get their rocks off before facing mortal combat.
The man in charge of the camp is Commandant Conrad von Starker (Adriano Micantoni). He runs things with an iron fist with help from his second in command, Alma (Maristella Greco). Eventually, Lise and Conrad begin a torrid love affair. When he's later accused of war crimes, her testimony sees him freed and from there, they return to the concentration camp where their affair first began. This time around, however, Lise has a different idea and all of that torture and degradation, all of those horrible experiments inflicted upon her and her fellow inmates? If she has her way, he'll get what's coming to him…
Canevari strives for grandeur here and it would seem that, even while ripping off Tinto Brass, he was at least trying to make an artsy film but as you watch the film it's painfully obvious that he simply didn't have the budget or possibly the skill to pull it off. The 'game' that develops in the early and then the latter parts of the relationship between Lise and von Starker is interesting in that it allows the movie to explore the dark side of their romance while delivering to the audience the requisite scenes of nastiness that they would no doubt expect from a movie like this. There's some depth to these moments, but honestly not very much and like most of the movies from this cycle the picture plays out more as an atrocity exhibition than anything else.
At its core, this is a fairly standard battle of the sexes, just one that happens to be dressed up with all the Nazi trappings to add to the taboo factor of such a setting. Canevari ups the ante in this regard by setting up scenes such as the infamous dinner where Nazi's feast upon the unborn babies of their Jewish inmates and, of course, no small amount of scenes of torture foisted on those aforementioned inmates. The Nazi elite keep their noses up at all of this, committed to the superiority they believe in and both Micantoni and Greco play their characters well in this regard. Poggi, who is quite lovely, is considerably more sympathetic, obviously, but towards the end of the movie we see how things have affected her to the point where in many ways she lowers herself to the level of her captors. There's some interesting food for thought here and at times Canevari pulls it off, but then we wind up snickering at some of the goofy softcore love scenes in which no one actually gets it on or we wind up giggling at the scene in which our heroine is dangled above flesh-eating rats that look more like cute little pet gerbils.
With all of that said, the movie does entertain. At times it feels like it's reaching for legitimate social commentary but that would lie just out of the film's grasp. It's not as gory in execution as some of its sleazy brethren and is at least occasionally smart enough to imply more than show and the movie is fairly well shot even when the production values fall short. It's hard to take any of this all that seriously though, at least as seriously as it would seem the filmmakers were.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Gestapo's Last Orgy arrives on DVD from Intervision framed at 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen in a watchable enough transfer (the previous DVD release from Media Blasters was non-anamorphic). The clarity won't blow you away and it looks like it was taken from an older analogue master, so don't expect miracles, but yeah, it's watchable enough.
Audio chores are handled by an English language Dolby Digital Mono track, there are no alternate language options or subtitles offered. The quality is fine, if a little flat in spots. The dialogue is easy to understand and the admittedly impressive (and at times almost epic) score sounds pretty good.
The main extra on the disc is a thirty-six minute long featurette entitled A Brief History of Sadiconazista in which author Marcus Stiglegger, who has written about Nazisploitation films in his book Nazi-Chic Und Nazi-Trash, gives us a pretty interesting rundown of how and why these movies came to exist early in the cycle before offering up some insight into the effectiveness, popularity and historical accuracy (or lack thereof) of many of the pictures. It's a welcome piece that sheds some light on this often (and understandably) mistreated genre and it's a good addition to the disc. The film's over the top theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection are also included.
The Final Word:
Gestapo's Last Orgy aims high but never quite gets there. As any sort of serious statement on either the Second World War or male-female relations it never really works, but as a trash film? An hour and a half of nasty exploitation that throws political correctness out the window? Well, yeah, on that level it delivers. It's never as campy as an Ilsa movie or as goofy as something like The Beast In Heat but it's got plenty of sex and violence to offer, and occasionally some though provoking moments and some nice visual style.
