When it comes to lazy film clichés, Nazis are one step above slow-motion gunfights and barely underneath “the hero must get the girl and save the day.” It’s fitting that Nazis manage to encompass everything from being the symbol for the Big, Bad Guy to perversion, occult beliefs and Holocaust Porn. Pop a swastika on someone and it becomes abundantly clear he’s the bad guy, whether it’s Samuel L. Jackson ripping through shoddy green screen in The Spirit or the lit-deviant prison guard Kate Winslet tackles in The Reader.
But sometimes, there are types of films that need to go “Full Nazi.” These select few films embrace the red, black and white because they’d have no other claim to fame otherwise. The eight films below have merit on their own, but it is through their use of the Nazi symbols that they remain on the cultural brain.
Apt Pupil
The effective start of Bryan Singer’s ode to the Reich involves Arthur Denker (Ian McKellen), a Nazi war criminal masquerading next door to Todd Bowen (Brad Renfro), who discovers his neighbor’s previous life. Being an obsessive sociopath in progress, young Todd demands Arthur (neé Kurt Dussander) regale him with tales of World War II and Nazism in general. He goes so far as taking a uniform from the attic and demands Arthur march for him. Pupil embodies the sadomasochistic nature that the fetish community places on the Nazis along with the concept that only scary, evil people ever want to learn about history. The duo develop a creepy grandparent/child vibe, as Arthur threatens to rat out Todd if his grades don’t improve, and both become encouraged to torture small animals and get some small pleasure out of it.
Hellboy
Though Mike Mignola’s series owes more to H. P. Lovecraft, he bridges the gap by riding on the occult coattails of Nazis and even Russian historic figures. Set against World War II, an American commando squad raid a secret Nazi location where Rasputin (yes, the same one) intends to awaken a group of inter-dimensional beings to destroy the world. By his side, Karl Kroenen, leader of the Thule Society, personal assassin for Hitler and dressed by a leather fetishist. The U.S. troops foil the portal, Rasputin is sucked into a distant dimension and the film’s titular red ape-demon remains on our side for the U.S. of A. Utterly overshadowed in Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptation for whimsical creature design, the zombie-like Kroenen remains a constant example of Nazi-ism surviing into the modern era. Initially a mere scientist, the film re-imagines him as the Reich’s top assassin—he’s quiet, lethal and horribly deformed underneath the premise of his gas mask. You may also question this video choice. That’s simple: I really like this duet.
Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS
Perhaps the best known take of “Holocaust Porn,” Ilsa takes the women-in-prison theme and turns it around with its sadistic titular scientist (Dyanne Thorne), who runs a stalag devoted to proving women can endure more than men–thus being better soldiers for the Reich–through torture and campy experiments. She also proves her statement that men are weak by taking a nightly lover and castrating him if he finishes before she can. Her downfall comes once an American soldier (”Wolfe”) arrives, who learns of her kink and proves himself more than capable of his porn star stamina. And hey, Ilsa even gives a Golden Shower while wearing an S.S. Major’s uniform. Of course, there’s a revolt, Ilsa is defeated and shockingly murdered–along with other guards and inmates–by a German commando team. While clearly skirting the “B”-level of film, this remains rather unnerving on the level of “why am I watching this?”
Saló o le 120 giornate di Sodoma
Mundane title credits aside, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s ‘modern’ retelling of The 120 Days of Sodom occurs in 1944 Italy in the Republic of Saló. Four high-ranking members of the community decide to marry each others’ daughters–and then consummate the event with an incredibly horrid ritual. They kidnap 18 men and women, bring out four prostitutes to “tell of” the events and proceed to create lavish, perverse torture to enact. Jewish women are (literally) consumed; shit is served as a last meal; men and women are raped and/or murdered if they can no longer stand their confinement. And then comes the voyeuristic thrill of watching those slaughtered through the binoculars. But the end does it, as two soldiers gaily dance with one another after the film’s events, questioning just what will happen to those that stand by this.
Il Portiere di notte/The Night Porter
You may be noticing an S&M theme, but you’ll get one better with Charlotte Rampling’s near-historic cabaret performance. Dirk Bogarde plays a former Nazi officer who finds himself as a night porter at a Vienna hotel, catering to his guests while conspiring with his former Nazi superiors to prepare for their upcoming trials. While serving at a concentration camp, he entered a twisted relationship with Lucia Atherton (Rampling), who coincidentally returns to his life when she comes to the hotel. Most famous for the twisted cabaret performance where Bogarde presents his lover with the head of a man who gave her trouble. Breathlessly toying with lines like, “’If I could wish something for myself/If could wish for a good time or a bad time - What should I wish? I can’t decide,” Rampling struts in the bare minimum of an officer’s uniform among a crowd of lounging individuals. Then again, Porter evokes the Holocaust while trying to present a sadomasochistic love story that–in context–seems utterly insane without its’ back story.
Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Arc/Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Steven Spielberg has such an incredible hard-on for Nazis, killing Nazis and doing god-knows what else to Nazis that it becomes self-parody. Jones (Harrison Ford) is the epitome of a rugged adventurer searching for myths and buried treasure. On his first and third outings, he deals with the Nazis, particularly those at the same Thule Society that relied on the Ark of the Covenant or Holy Grail to continue the Fürher’s work. But as Indiana knows, you can’t be a Nazi without being thrown off a zeppelin, shot, stabbed, torn up by an airplane propeller or have god knows what other awful fate waiting for you. Jones tried to work out the Nazi angle in Temple of Doom, but ultimately Spielberg came running back to it because it makes for a better villain. Even in the fourth installment, the foil villains are the communist Russians. Hate to say it, but without the Nazis, Herr Doktor Jones wouldn’t be doing a whole lot of whipping.
The Boys from Brazil
Maybe we just felt like including this because Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck have an epic fight that ends with bloodthirsty Dobermans who react to the command, “Kill.” Maybe this perfectly embodies the myth that Hitler had thirty some clones from Brazil spread into the world. Regardless, this pseudo-sci-fi thriller from Franklin J. Schaffner (who also did Lionheart) got an Oscar nod for Olivier’s portrayal of Ezra Lieberman and offers Peck’s hokiest line ever: “A Hitler tailor-made for the 1980s, the 1990s, 2000!”
Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler!
I assumed it was a joke, but actually this is an Italian “Nazisploitation” film that made a wild gambit on two things:
1) People would like Tinto Brass’ Caligula.
2) Imagine how hot it would be to see a naked woman strung up, vomiting, as she’s lowered into a crate of rats. Not a big crate—more like a shoebox or an ottoman.
Released in 1977, there is no parallel to Caligula aside from copious sex, poor plot pacing and a desperate attempt to appeal to the inner philosopher in us all. Director Cesare Canevari does us one better by having a woman devoured by ‘rats’ (read: they’re gerbils). This may be as shlocky as Nazi films get, but just imagine the looks on your friends faces when you say, “I spent time watching Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler. Well, he wasn’t in the film, but how awesome does that sound!” Worse still is this film literally misses a plot: it has events and actions, but not real structure. At all. It merely stops like a bad home movie that makes everyone who saw it question their own sanity. In fact, the only inspiration this sleaze inspires is to add “Caligula Reincarnated” to a film title as some type of drinking game or mild amusement. Because without Nazis or Hitler, this would just be called Hostel 3.
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