Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975)

I wanted to but couldn't!

hyped garbage

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

The commonly made observation that a particular old film today looks tame by modern standards always depresses me, representing as it does a reflection on how debased modern tastes have become: and becoming more debased by the minute. For that reason it comes as something of a relief that 'Ilsa' still looks pretty revolting today, even if it doesn't begin to compare with the sheer relentless nastiness of nihilistic shockers like Kōji Wakamatsu's 'Violated Angels' (1967) and Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Salo' (1975), and is partially rescued by the childish sense of glee that makes the films of the late Herschell Gordon Lewis bearable.Two distinguished Polish feature films have depicted the experience of women held in Nazi concentration camps, Wanda Jakubowska's 'The Last Stage' (1948) and 'Andrzej Munk's 'Passenger' (1963). Over the years there has been occasional trash with pretensions set against the backdrop of The Holocaust, such as Roger Vadim's soporific 'Le Vice et la Vertu' (1963) and Liliana Cavani's sleazy 'The Night Porter' (1974). And then there is simple trash like 'Ilsa She Wolf of the SS'.Less cheesy looking than I had anticipated, with professional-looking photography, generally good acting and unpleasantly convincing special effects by Joe Blaso, the film is shot on the sets left over from the production of the TV series 'Hogan's Heroes'. 'Camp Nine' only seems to be holding about a dozen prisoners, and George 'Buck' Flower as Dr.Binz could easily have wandered in from an episode of the original series.The character of Ilsa herself is loosely based upon the genuine antics of Ilse Koch (1906-1967), the wife of the commandant of Buchenwald best remembered for her taste in lampshades. She makes love to male inmates like a praying mantis until the unprecedented staying power of - guess what! - an American, sends her to hitherto undreamt of heights of ecstasy and exposes her Achilles heel. Ilsa has a theory that women are capable of enduring more pain than men; a theory that if proved will result in better use of the so far underused resource of German womanhood on behalf of the war effort. Nobody who has read the relevant section in William Shirer's 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' will, alas, be surprised at anything they come across in this film (such as the decompression chamber, immersion in water and deliberate infection of prisoners in order to test medical treatments). The sequence when Ilsa is alone with The General (as she refers to him throughout) also indicates that someone involved in the film was aware of the gossip concerning the Führer's own personal sexual predilections.Set in the very last days the Third Reich in 1945, it goes without saying that no serious attempt has been made to get the period right, but even so Ilse's rather ugly seventies hairstyle is distractingly anachronistic, especially worn loose as it is when she's in uniform (all her other female staff have their hair more plausibly tied back in buns) and if she'd just let it down occasionally during her more - er - unrestrained moments the contrast could have had more visual impact. The late Anne Ridler looked more authentic to the period - and was far hotter - in her brief role as an SS torturer in '633 Squadron' (1964).Many will find simply discussing such a disreputable trivialisation of Nazi atrocities so nonchalantly grossly offensive. But as an earlier user has pointed out, Nazi-porn pulp novels known as 'Stalags' were popular in 60s Israel; and this movie's portrayal of the Nazis as sadistic perverts would probably offend most Holocaust deniers too. (Although an American-German production, the film was of course banned in Germany.)

Dyanne Thorne is Ilsa the Kommandant of the concentration camp in this Naziploitaion Grindhouse classic of the 1970s. She conducts private experiments to show that women have a higher threshold for pain than men and should be used in the front line which the Nazis actually did to a small extent.Some of the nasty treatment dished out to the female inmates include electro shock treatment to the nipples including an electrified dildo thrust into their vaginas. At a dinner party for a visiting Nazi officer, a naked woman is placed on a block of ice with a garrote like noose tied around her neck. While they eat dinner, the ice slowly melts bloodily asphyxiating her. There are open wounds covered in Typhus infected maggots as well as women being infected with venereal diseases. There is also whippings and gang rapes of the female inmates. Women are submerged in hot water and slowly boiled, others are put into a decompression chambers. In all the torture scenes the women are naked.The men also do not get away so easily from Ilsa. Right at the beginning we see a man who does not sexually satisfy Ilsa getting castrated for his shortcomings. The emphasis on the porn torture though is on the women.Ilsa shows plenty of her ample breasts throughout the film and at one point urinates on the visiting Nazi officer.This is a quickly shot film made in 9 days in the film lot containing the sets from Hogan's Heroes. Some of the script is laughable, some of the gore looks tame nowadays and the whole feel is more camp than exploitation 40 years on.The guy who plays the American inmate and who manages to sexually satisfy Ilsa because he can keep on going like the Duracell Bunny can just about deliver his lines in a wooden manner.There are some well shot action sequences at the end of the movie as some of the inmates stage a daring escape. As a film of its exploitation genre this is regarded as a classic even though it is a low budget, quickly shot and badly made film.

I tried watching this thing after reading the other comments on IMDb, expecting to have my mind blown. Or at least the part responsible for good, sound moral judgement. Maybe I'm just dulled from seeing contemporary newscasts, but the most shocking feature turned out to be the ample supply of untrimmed 1970's bush.The only other thing worth noting was that the German soldier kept shouting 'raus, raus' at a prisoner even when she was already well out of the truck. Clearly one of the supermen. Didn't stick around long enough to get in to the rest of the storyline. I can see the artistic merit of the lead figure, though, in a Lacanian sense: 10 points for inventing her, minus 7 for putting her in such a sh@tty movie. Can't wait to skip through the 3 sequels.

Most here are aware of how this one plays out. Experiments are conducted on war camp prisoners, which are all overseen by our lovely Fraulein Doktor (of title fame). This gal has a nasty habit of collecting male "forget me nots". Some collect stamps. Others, genitals. Call her an eccentric.Anyhow, politics between the camp and Berlin come into play along with an American she can't figure out (and the requisite escape plans brewing), but those are mere plot details. No sense boring everyone with gratuitous information on the storyline when there's some juicy bits to discuss.Torture of many respects abound in this one. Castration, gang rape, bacterial/viral injections, human lobster pots, slow hanging (mit eis schmelzen), nipple 'trodes, the list goes on and on. The production values are pretty fair in this one (the sets being left over from "Hogan's Heroes") and the makeup's not half bad. The acting's a bit over the top in "Ilsa", especially with the doktor's blonde henchwomen, but who can really fault topless floggers? Not I.Thumbs up for me here. It's only single "X", but still some nasty fun.Charlie.