Salon Kitty (1977)

Very well executed

To me, this movie is perfection.

Just perfect...

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

What i like in tinto brass's films is the nudity of beautiful women.CHEEKY,ALL LADIES DO IT,PAPRIKA and FRIVOLOUS LOLA, just to name a few,really delivers the merchandise.But not every film by brass delivers the scenes lovers of the female form crave for.Sometimes the nude scenes are too few and the actress's look is pretty dull like in THE KEY,MIRANDA or many of the TINTO BRASS PRESENTS segments.Other times, there is too much bloody violence like in CALIGULA or in SALON KITTY.And sometimes Brass puts too much male genitalia or gay characters in his films. (Zero gay characters is pretty much what would be acceptable to me!)PAPRIKA had a strong storyline and plenty of female nudity but the scene where a younger man has sexual intercourse with an older man made me want to throw up!Some of the excessive violence in SALON KITTY consists of slaughtered pigs,a scene featuring a woman who died of a self induced abortion and a blood stained mirror after the shooting of a man.The producers thought the blood stained mirror was so beautiful that this scene is even featured in the trailer!Normally my thoughts are that male genitalia should only be featured when a man is about to make love to a woman.Here there's the dancing men with women 's dress lifting their skirts and a dildo made of bread. None of this was appealing to me.The main female star in this film is Theresa ann savoy. She's pretty and steals every scene in which she's in. I also liked the scene where about 15 women are standing naked side by side after getting undressed. I don't remember seeing a shot like this in any other films & i've seem a lot!When you strip this overlong film of it's gore, it's cabaret singing & dance scenes,it's ugly people having sex scenes and concentrate on the Theresa ann savoy story which involves the killing of a man she loved and her plan for revenge, there 's a good story here somewhere for sure but you've got to watch a lot of unappealing stuff to get there!

Sometimes when a film relaxes and you relax into it, you can really feel that you are touching the filmmaker. That he is slightly drunk and comfortable and you are experiencing him (or her).That's one place you want to be in your life in films, and it is the basis for many of the film experiences I rate as "must have."But it has all sorts of dangers. The filmmaker must be more than skilled enough to connect, he must be actually interesting, worthwhile, engaged in life in ways that impregnate. There are few films that are well enough sculpted to be entered. And of those, there are few that reward your investing wet parts of your soul to it. You know who the good ones are.Even then, often you'll get what you have here, equal parts of fine wine and flat cola. I suppose it is impossible to be otherwise with Nazi-centered soft porn, but Jess Franco (when not drunk) can do pretty well.The good here is that once in a while, you'll encounter some staging with some stark, clear composition and elements that are every bit in the class with Lang or Greenaway. These have ordinary camera positions: non-human in character but human in position. Its the creation of a staged imagination, of dramatic nuance not placed in the actor but in the cinematic frame. (The actors aren't bad, by the way; its just that the weight of the thing isn't on their shoulders — or other body parts.)Some day, commentors like me will be able to provide bookmarks to these scenes so you can experience them without wading through the rotted soup in between. Oh, and that is a ghastly experience, a walk in the dark through greasy fog from one brilliant view through a window to the next.Hey, there's a story, but never mind. Its as irrelevant, stupid and disposable as its sisters, like "Schindler's List," which this resembles in a few ways. And there's some nudity, though in most cases one wonders why. The chief actress is pretty and very German, different from Brasses usual big-bottomed Italian tigresses.I'd really like you to see some of the good stuff here. But like much of Bertolucci, you would curse me for sending you there.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

When I bought Salon Kitty, The Director's Cut, I thought I would be doing something quite risky in buying this controversial curiosity. Salon Kitty is the story of a Brothel Madam who is hired by the SS to school a group of perfect 'National Socialist Party' women to become prostitutes for the Third Reich, whilst secretly recording their customer's disclosure of secrets for later use (one supposes) in blackmail.There is a genuine feel of Brass's other work, Caligula in this hugely staged presentation. The sets are impressive but to certain eyes look a bit 1970s and some may be shocked at the imagery on show here, for example, the women being required to 'prove' their worthiness on the project by performing various sex acts on unlikely clients. Berger plays a Nazi officer with more than a passing interest in Margherita as she comes to his home and offers him sexual favours in return for a place on the project.Still, if you want a viewpoint of Brass' work without renting Caligula, which is a highly flawed film, then try this curiosity but it is not for the nervous or fainthearted.

Kitty Kellermann (Ingrid Thulin) runs a bordello for the Nazis in WW2 where numerous atrocities are committed. An army official has bugged the place hoping to usurp power from Hitler. It has amputee sex, midget sex, and hunchback coupling. Bothed home made abortions and it's not a straight out exploitation film, nope not when Tinto "over-rated hack" Brass is concerned. Nope this is an art-house flick through and through. It's also excruciatingly long, impossably tedious and mundane, hopelessly dreary, and given to subject matter, deathly dull. Of course a few years later, Tinto would prove that he could fail on a much bigger global scale with "Caligola" My Grade: D- DVD Extras: Disc 1) Tinto Brass Bio; International and US theatrical Trailers Disc 2) Interviews with Tinto Brass,and Production Designer Ken Adam; 3 radio spots; Poster & stills gallery; Production & Costume designs DVD-Rom: Complete book "the Story of Madame Kitty"