In which I examine the nazisploitation films that followed the release of Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS; She Devils of the SS (1973, predating Ilsa), Hitler’s Last Train (1977), Elsa: Fraulein of the SS (1977), SS Hell Camp (1977), and Helga: She Wolf of Stillberg (1977).
I don’t know the rules in various countries about the use of certain NS imagery so I shall edit all pictures to remove them. That way if you’re in some sort of dystopian police-state, the sensors won’t detect any swastikas. You’re welcome.
She Devils of the SS, 1973
Also released as Frauleins in Uniform. I have the DVD release of this from Cheezy Flicks and when I popped it in, I saw not only “play” and “scene select” but “intermission time.” Being a big fan of commercials, movie theatre snacks, and commercials for movie theatre snacks, I had to put this on. I was not disappointed. Cartoons about getting ice cream, an ad for some guy’s pizza place, and a short cartoon about a sphinx who drinks pepsi. Even if the film ends up being terrible, the experience is spectacular. I also decided to watch the “also from” section to see if I can learn of any cool new films. Films featured include: Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies, Invasion of the Blood Farmers (They plant the living and harvest the dead!), Destination Inner Space, and The Navy vs the Night Monsters. I wish there was a function that allowed these segments to be automatically played during the middle of the feature to accurately replicate an intermission. This is a German-Swiss film which surprises me as doesn’t Germany have laws against displaying nazi imagery?
I missed the opening credits to this as I was fishing a popcorn kernel out of my keyboard but when I finally got it out I looked up to see a bunch of ass-naked nazis getting ready for a medical examination. It seems the German war effort is lacking and women are being admitted into the Wehrmacht so a girl of half-Jewish, half-Aryan descent (who the film quickly forgets about in favour of a bunch of might-as-well-be-nameless frauleins) signs up and leaves for nubile boot camp on a train labeled rader rollen fur den sieg. Now I don’t know a word of German but I really hope that that translates as ROCK AND ROLL SIEGE WARFARE. The rest of the film is just these girls running around a camp finding soldiers to bang. Extremely unsafe firearm etiquette is performed.
Later in the film we actually get a fire-fight between the Germans and some T-34s (or something similar) but they go about it in a pretty dumb way. The troops are entrenched and the tanks have no infantry support. So what do the nazis do? Start shooting from a half-mile away with small arms. Good job, you’ve alerted the tanks to your presence and have no hope of penetrating their armour. Here’s a tip – next time a tank is rolling up on you, stay the fuck in your foxhole and let anti-tank weaponry do its job.
No Blood (well the barest amount of blood), No Beasts, Yes Breasts, Yes Butt (Yes to like one frame of Man Butt as a guy dives in the lake) and Yes Bush (in brunette, blonde, and red). Compared to other films in the genre, this one is somewhat of a black sheep – it predated Ilsa by 2 years and is thus artistically more authentic. It isn’t trying to copy anything and it shows – this is not a violent torture-porn flick. It’s a softcore porno that happens to have She and SS in the title – that’s about where the similarities end. I don’t really know how to talk about this kind of film. What do I comment on? The girls were cute I guess. The costumes were okay I guess. What the hell am I supposed to say? I achieved no erections during the watching of this film. Does that mean it failed? Was I supposed to get an erection? It only has 1 out of the 3 B’s. I can’t even claim that the nazis count as beasts in this as they never really do nazi things. Just shoot down a few planes and have a lot of sex. Towards the end during a strip-tease in an officer’s manor, there are several nazi flags hanging alongside each other but the swastikas are all made with different line weights. I do not know if it’s accurate but it looks cheap. I award this a Zero Thumbs Up Seal of Disapproval.
Hitler’s Last Train, 1977
Also released as Captive Women 5: Mistress of the Third Reich and Love Train of the SS. My copy of this looks like someone projected a film reel and filmed what was projected. The lighting is sorta wonky, there’s a grainy texture to it and we get all the little film scratches. At parts the sound is even screwy and sounds like it’s being put through a really intense square-wave tremolo effect or through a leslie cabinet. I think this is a positive and I wish I could apply this as a filter to other films. I am pleased that an early sex scene is averted by the fraulein telling her lover that he should dictate his article first. One must always place duty ahead of pleasure. Good for her to offer such an important message so early in the film. Furthermore, she does indeed have sex with him once his work is done which encourages keeping one’s promises and the values of a reward-based management system.
The idea here is that there’s a mobile brothel for all the SS officers that’s run by a burlesque dancer. Throughout the film you watch these prostitutes pretty much just have sex. And do other weird depraved shit like at one point an SS officer wants to ride one around like a horse. Don’t know what that’s about. We also get scantily-clad karaoke featuring a Col Klink look-alike. At one point we are given some degree of intrigue; Col Klink is arrested by Mme Ingrid and a cute girl from earlier in the film is brought on board so she can clash with Mme Ingrid. This helps establish Ingrid as a more sinister character as opposed to just horny. Unfortunately this relationship isn’t as developed as it could be.
About half way through the film the tone shifts – the German war effort is taking a turn for the worst so all of the officers these girls serve are being recalled to the front. There are some combat scenes but I highly doubt they were filmed for this movie. Probably taken from a previous film. The train is stuck in place and needs rescuing but lo and behold, it is the Polish resistance. These irregulars are rather rude and spend like 3 minutes spanking hookers before kissing them after they say no please don’t kiss me there sir. Of course kissing refers to other acts but enough of that. The Poles are killed and the girls carry on their merry way to Berlin where they can flirt with more officers and get escorted to the Elbe where they can escape to the Americans. This scene is stupid because right after Mme Ingrid swims across the lake, her hair magically becomes dry. Ridiculous. At any rate, she becomes a USO dancer and all’s well that ends well…or does it? Not going to spoil that bit but it’s a pretty great final frame.
Breasts, Bush, Butts. No Blood, No Beasts. The dubbing isn’t amazing – I believe this is a French production and they certainly aren’t as competent at the dubbing game as Italians. Like Frauleins in Uniform, this is primarily a pornographic feature so again, I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do with this. I’d call this a bit more “hardcore” than the previous film but for the most part fairly tasteful. There’s no on-screen penetrative imagery. Disturbingly, we can say that Tarantino would like this one what with the podiatric content. The costuming is quite good and there’s lots of fun music that does a good job imparting the party-like atmosphere. Still, there’s no plot. I’d say I enjoyed this as much as our previous film, that is to say, not much. Zero Thumbs Up Seal of Disapproval.
Elsa: Fraulein of the SS, 1977
Also released as Fraulein Devil. Captive Women 4, and Fraulein Kitty. Starring Malisa Longo who we’ll see shortly as the titular character in Helga: She Wolf, along with two other ladies appearing in that film in roles of varying importance. Similar to the last film, Hitler needs women and puts them on a train. Opening credits feature some rather delightful classical music played over footage of an angry moustachio’d fellow giving speeches. Wonder what’s his problem. The music turns and it sort of reminds me of the intro music from Conker’s Bad Fur Day. It’s recorded from a 78 I believe as there’s that beautifully haunting characteristic warble. It suits the footage it’s played over which is real WW2 footage. A grim scene. An abrupt cut brings the film into colour and we begin proper.
Thankfully, this film manages to differentiate itself from our previous entry as the love train is created with the intention of rooting out Stauffenburg collaborators. Of note, this was made by the same production company as Hitler’s Last Train and released some 6 months following.
I don’t know what it is about this movie but it’s boring. It was about half-way through when I first cared about what was going on. One of the hos was trying to trick an officer into revealing defeatist opinions and he basically said he doesn’t care at all how the war goes, as long as it keeps going on as it means he doesn’t have to go back home to his battleaxe of a wife. That got a chuckle out of me. The rest of this film is just the blandest attempt at subterfuge and intrigue I’ve ever seen. The titillation isn’t enough to spice up the weak script. I think what the film really needs is more tension. More instances where an officer knows he’s been tricked and is doing their best to avoid it but get trapped in a bad turn of phrase like something out of Columbo. Instead, everything sort of just occurs without true conflict or weight.
Breasts, Bush, Butts. The bad guys are far more, well, bad in this one so I can safely call the nazis Beasts in this. They spend enough time executing political dissidents after their secrets are revealed during sex. Now I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure prostitutes fall under the same attorney-client-privilege that lawyers or priests offering confession do. Anyways, no Blood. The music’s alright. Some of the sex scenes have a sort of smooth electric organ sound. A not quite a Rhodes but close. I have no idea why this was also released as Captive Women 4. Pretty much no women are held captive apart from the prostitutes being under a curfew for a while so that a security leak can be found.
This film lakes the violence and debauchery that would inject some life into this so I shall therefore award it a One Thumb Down Seal of Disapproval.
SS Hell Camp, 1977
Also released as The Beast in Heat. The opening credits for this are dismal. A shoddy looking pink swastika on a blue background for 45 seconds then an abrupt cut to a medical experiment. We could have at least had some fade out or waited for an appropriate time in the music. Pay attention to this first scene though – there’s a female nazi guard standing in the background making the most non-plussed and blasé facial expressions imaginable.
This movie is off to a much better start than the others. It brings out everything we want within minutes. Depravity, violence, nazis being bad guys that we can spend the film hating as we’re supposed to, a mutant caveman that requires virgins for inappropriate love-making, and resistance commandos (one of whom looks like Gavin from the slo-mo guys) taking out SS troopers and blowing up a train. In ten minutes I’ve seen more excitement than half of these films put together. The latter scenes have a lot of combat too which is always exciting.
The nazis in this one are properly fucking evil unlike some of these other flicks. At one point a soldier “yeets” as the youth would say, a baby into the air only for his buddy to practice skeet shooting. It’s like a Troma head-crushing. They murder an old man in front of his 7-year-old grand-daughter, there’s forced fornication, luger to the vulva, pseudo-crucifixion, castration, genital electrocution, chinese rat torture, and genital cannibalism.
Breasts, Blood, Beasts, Bush, Butt, Penis. A perfect trifecta. The beast looks like a weird caveman version of Luis Guzman. The music in this is fun. There’s some decent synth tracks and they generally suit the mood unlike the zany circus music that some of these other films have. After an exciting opening the film slows down until roughly the half-way mark at which point it picks up again. I wish the evil female doctor was more of a character throughout the bulk of the film but other than that, this one was a massive step up and almost on par with one of the “name-brand” Ilsa films. There’s a bunch of combat between partisans and nazis but not a lot of the Hell Camp of the title. I thought the weird mutant sex ape nazi would play a larger role. I think it deserves a One Thumb Up Seal of Approval.
Helga: She Wolf of Stilberg, 1978
Also released as Helga the Leather Mistress and as above but with Spilberg instead of Stilberg for some reason. I have done my research and it seems as though Stilberg is not a real place, but Spillberk is a castle in Bohemia. The opening credits music reminds me of something Monty Python would play during an intermission. Right from the get-go, this movie sets itself apart from others – it takes place in a fictitious South American country in which naughty Germans fled to after WW2 and they have a successor party that has a far more absurd symbol that resembles some sort of geometric triangle set-up. Meanwhile, Helga is walking around in a Hawaiian shirt. Camo worn in this is either a DPM or Lizard pattern but it’s too grainy for me to tell. If it is Lizard pattern, it’d suggest that this takes place near Guyana as it’s the only French colony within South America. Of course the Portuguese also used Lizard but they tended to make the stripes vertical.
Helga pisses off el Presidente so she’s sent to run a work camp for political dissidents. Helga runs the camp with all the cruelty of Ilsa until the daughter of a revolucionary trying to overthrow el Jefe shows up, they fall in love, cue the music. And man, what music it is. One of the prison officers or a political adjunct or something, I have no idea, has his way with one of the prisoners in a barn and it’s playing fucking free-jazz circus music. It’s like something Buckethead would solo over. Of course Helga is hiding in the barn playing with herself which makes the scene all the more ridiculous. While what I described involving the dissident’s daughter seems like the barest semblance of plot, please do not be fooled. This story-line goes no-where fast. Every scene falls into one of two categories: bland lesbian sex (who knew there was such a thing!) and vague excuses for setting up a bland lesbian sex scene. This is not a movie that excels at holding one’s attention. It ends up being a blur as none of the characters are interesting, none of the lovin’ is interesting, and none of the fightin’ is interesting. It wasn’t until the last 25 minutes or so that anything remotely engaging happens and even that is dull. A prison-break with two people that didn’t have any tension nor any decent build-up. Fifteen boring minutes later we get some kick ass scenes of shit on fire and some tanks and the dictator getting blown away. This section should have been 20 minutes long with some planning from inside the prison. That way the government could message Helga with intel that the dissidents are getting ballsier and she should crack down on any rebels in the prison. This would give her some more opportunity for some psycho interrogations. The potential was there, the execution, sadly, was not.
Breasts, Butt, Bush, Bathtubs. No Blood or Beasts so this film has already failed but on top of that, it’s cursed with awful sound design. If you’re going to watch this in English, avoid headphones as there’s a lot of shrill shrieking. When we’re blessed with a respite from their banshee wails, we are instead treated to awful voice acting. Perhaps stick to subtitles over a French or Italian audio track with this one. At one point Mrs Longo stairs at the camera and smiles while she’s sitting in bed smoking and that really bothered my sensibilities. I’m glad that I watched this solely for the change in setting proving that you can make a nazisploitation film without any nazis but I can’t see myself ever recommending this nor watching it again. I award it One Thumb Down Seal of Disapproval.
PS one of the posters claims that Helga is “Deadlier than Ilsa” Not to spoil things for you but I’ll give you three guesses as to who Helga sure as shit isn’t deadlier than.
Final Thoughts
I really thought these films would try and out-do the Ilsa films. Isn’t that how exploitation films work? There’s a marketable gimmick so they keep trying to amp up the violence/sex/racism from the previous film in a never-ending power creep. These all pale in terms of both violence and eroticism while having far less actual structure or plot with the exception of SS Hell Camp. While many of these find various ways to spice up the initial idea of “nazis taking their tops off,” they all fail to capitalize on it and we end up with a bunch of 90 minute bores that just make me want to watch Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks. Out of these, Hell Camp is by a country mile the best. If I were to re-watch any of these films in the future, it’d be Ilsa She Wolf, Ilsa Harem Keeper, and SS Hell Camp.
Swords & Schlock 
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