Salon Kitty – 1976
Depraved. Decadent. Damned.
Director
Tinto Brass

Writers
Tinto Brass screenplay
Antonio Colantuoni story
Ennio De Concini screenplay
Ennio De Concini story
Maria Pia Fusco screenplay
Maria Pia Fusco story
Peter Norden novel
Louise Vincent English dialogue

Producers
Ermanno Donati producer
Giulio Sbarigia producer

Cast
Helmut Berger – Helmut Wallenberg
Ingrid Thulin – Kitty Kellermann
Teresa Ann Savoy – Margherita
John Steiner – Biondo
Sara Sperati – Helga, the dominatrix
Maria Michi – Hilde
Rosemarie Lindt – Susan
Paola Senatore – Marika
John Ireland – Cliff
Tina Aumont – Herta Wallenberg
Alexandra Bogojevic – Gloria
Dan van Husen – Rauss
Ullrich Haupt
Stefano Satta Flores – Dino
Bekim Fehmiu – Hans Reiter
Giancarlo Badessi – Officer w/Bread
Luciano Rossi – Doctor Schwab
Gianfranco Bullo – Wolff
Gigi Ballista
Margherita Horowitz – Margherita’s Mother
Alain Naya – (as Alain Corot)
Clara Colosimo – Dinner Guest
Maria Rosaria Riuzzi – (as Mary Kristall)
Malisa Longo – One of Kitty’s Girls
Paola Maiolini
Alena Penz
Loretta Persichetti
Margherita Petrucca
Michele Starck – (as Michelle Starck)
Alison Swaisland
Tamara Triffez
Patrizia Webley
Annie Ross – Kitty Kellermann (singing voice)
Salvatore Baccaro – Brutish Prisoner
John Bartha – Gestapo Agent
Geoffrey Copleston – Dinner Guest
Tom Felleghy – Gestapo Agent
Osiride Peverello – Man in Saloon
Pietro Torrisi – Tattooed Gypsy
Aldo Valletti – Un cliente

Review by Sven Soetemans

Brass’ controversial Nazi-sleazefest,
Made a few years before the even more notorious ‘Caligula’, this ‘Salon Kitty’ focuses on a more recent era of despicable history. Set in the earliest years of Hitler’s reign and the start of WWII, it handles about power-mad Nazi officer Wallenberg who puts Madame Kitty’s luxurious brothel in service of the ‘Third Reich’ and recruits a bunch of patriotic beauties to serve as prostitutes. But, instead of doing this as a favor for his fellow Nazi-superiors, he blackmails them with the information he gets by having the chambers bugged.

This film is infamous and hated because of its topic (I always heard it was as close to propaganda as you can get) and the explicitly of the sexual content. Granted, Tinto Brass does have a bizarre obsession for showing as much genitalia (female AND male) as possible but aside from a few sequences featuring deformed midgets, it’s never too sickening. The dullness is what bothered me here! The film is overlong and I wasn’t really anticipating all those Cabaret sequences.

The screenplay too often handles about pointless intrigues and the plot only gets REALLY interesting around the last half hour when the young Margherita unravels Wallenberg’s vile actions and conspiracies against him. Thank God for Theresa Ann Savoy! This stunning beauty (who also played a remarkable role in ‘Caligula’) makes this exploitation experience ten times more bearable because of her natural charisma and ravishing body.

If it weren’t for her, I’m sure the ratings for this film would be even lower.