Saturday, March 12, 2011

Elsa Fraulein SS (1977)




Director: Patrice Rhomm

Starring: Malisa Longo, Olivier Mathot, Patrizia Gori, Pamela Stanford, Claudine Beccarie

More info: IMDb

Plot: To improve the morale of the German officers, a train with beautiful girls is arranged to entertain them when on leave.



My rating: 3.5/10

Will I watch it again? NEIN!


Christ on rubber crutches it's a chore to get through some of these things! The title wants you to think of ILSA, SHE WOLF OF THE SS (1974) but it's far from it. I will say this, though, Elsa is A LOT hotter than Ilsa!

Elsa...


Ilsa...


I still say Ilsa looks like Scott Bakula in drag. They seriously should've done Quantum Leap episode on Ilsa.




Elsa is played by the very lovely Malisa Longo who we saw briefly in SALON KITTY (1976). She did another Nazisploitation-esque flick the same year as ELSA called, HELGA, SHE WOLF OF SPILBERG (1977), which is yet another name trying to capitalize on ILSA. I just hope it's not as shitty as ELSA. Woof. [EDIT: I thought HELGA was part of this genre but it's not, although it easily could be if it were Nazis instead of some modern day, random Latin American country that look and act like Nazis. It's been taken off the Nazisploitation list.]


Longo is the best thing about this picture. She and Olivier Mathot (both in the pic directly above) stand head and shoulders above every other aspect of the movie. Hell, she's even a knockout sans clothing which is great except in the following scene she gives the worst performance I've ever seen of someone fucking. Stills can't begin to show you how awkward she is here. Yikes.



While some of the other Nazisploitaion flicks tried to marry battle footage from other movies to make it look seamless (though usually unsuccessful), director Rhomm goes the super cheap route and goes for realism. It's laughably bad. It's one thing to show actual B&W footage, which I'm entirely OK with although it would have been nice to have something of better quality, but here they've cut it in with this one guy's face that's on a much better and cleaner film stock and they keep cutting back to him. It's hilariously bad. It begins with Frantz talking about his days on the Russian front...





There's a modest amount of nudity and that's modest for a Nazisploitation picture. Say, that reminds me. In EVERY SINGLE one of these movies I've seen so far there has been full frontal female nudity. 12 for 12. That's a pretty solid track record. I can't think of any genre outside of porn that can say that. It's just an observation. It's not like I was looking for it or anything...



I could so get used to living there.

Ooh! Shoot me next. Please?

ELSA is frightfully dull. If you manage to get through the first 45 minutes you're not exactly halfway there because the second 45 minutes takes forever to finish and I blame that on the director. ELSA is probably the worst Nazisploitation I've seen yet and that makes me very nervous since I've got another dozen or so to get through.

For what it's worth, the Media Blasters DVD includes a great widescreen print, as you can see and a few extras - an all too brief interview with Longo, some 70s Italian genre trailers (including this one) and a short gallery. At least they tried to do something and for that I commend them. It's too bad the film is an ordeal to sit through.

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