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Deported Women of the SS Special Section (1976)

Dir: Rino de Silvestro

Nazi Germany.
A group of ‘undesirable’ women are transported to a prison camp run by the sadistic Heir Enna (John Steiner) where some are removed to work camps whilst others are chosen to work as prostitutes in the infamous ‘Joy Division’ to pleasure Reich soldiers.

The camp is staffed by sexually aggressive female guards like Inga (the delightfully named Felicita Fanny) who molest any inmate they desire and routine cruelty is dished out to any of the women that do not please.

We follow two of the women through their time at the camp, Angela (Stefania D'Amario) who’s an ex-acrobat (!) and Tanya (Lina Polito) who used to live with a (since executed) Partisan and who we learn (via a foggy/white flashback scene) Enna desired earlier in the War when he just a regular soldier.
And with Tanya now at his mercy Enna plans to make her his….

 

One of the rarer Nazisploitation films “Deported Women” is also one of the most character focused as well as one of the most realistic looking.
From the initial sequence of the huddled women in a dank train coach, to the dark and squalid concrete corridors and rooms of the camp itself, Director Rino de Silvestro (“Werewolf Woman”) presents us with a very solemn atmosphere (helped as well by the dour Stelvio Cipriani score) and the shadowed, washed out cinematography by Sergio D'Offizi (“Atlantis Interceptors“) may not be a picture to the eyes but it works perfectly for setting the doom laden atmosphere, as well as making the crimson Nazi decorations stand ominously out. In fact the frequent Nazi (and specifically SS) regalia provides the only real colour in the film, as well as in the lives of the women.
The make-up on the women is also a plus as it makes even the most attractive Euro starlet look suitably gaunt and sickly.

The fact that not much dramatic happens may not crank up the ‘cheap ‘n’ trashy’ thrills (though there are certainly some worthy moments) but it does actually add to the realism once again as the film simply depicts general, day to day, life for the inmates and when added to the look of the film it‘s, despite sharing subject matter, a long way from the more ‘action’ packed, bright ‘n’ shiny Nazisploitation of “Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS”.

So we’ve established it’s a sombre, bleak and squalid film in looks and atmosphere and dour in it’s plot construction, but we’re still in the realm of Exploitation of course and certain rules must be obeyed (to quote the Nazis!) and “Deported Women” certainly delivers on the nudity and the way it uses that nudity to literally strip away the women’s dignity.

As soon as the women reach the camp a naked, blood caked body is seen being carried out like so much meat. The women are then forced to strip (as the groin level camera ogles their pubic hair) for a haematological examination before going to get shaved, where we are treated to an extended trimming sequence that ends with the camera zooming in on the now exposed labia. But it’s actually the sight of their heads being shaved that brings home the degradation.
One of the inmates, Carrol (Paola D'Egidio),is also having an affair (which comes from nowhere!) with male guard Frederic (Rik Battaglia), which just happens to be uncovered as quickly as it’s introduced and results in a suitably tragic doomed romance outcome as well as some full frontal male nudity to spice up the Exploitation quota even more.

Away from just the nudity the film also delivers plenty of lesbian trysts as the guards seduce and simply molest the inmates. A sequence between an inmate and Inga (Felicita Fanny is genuinely striking), once again has the camera focus (from behind this time) between Inga’s legs resulting in some pretty explicit images of fondled genitalia.
Other sex scenes are rougher though (“That’s right you dog, eat me! Eat me! It’s so good”) and one even results in two of the female guards fighting each other over who gets to do the molesting! We certainly leave realism behind here as we witness two of them scratching and biting each other on the floor of the prisoners’ rooms but it has to be said it’s fun.

What this film slighty lacks compared to most (though certainly not all) Nazisploitation flicks is violence and bloodshed.
We have a brief visit to the torture chamber (always essential) where an unfortunate is clamped, naked, into a chair and has a truncheon jabbed into an open wound in a sequence that delivers the main bloodshed in the film, but it is (as with much of the movie in fact) the dialogue that’s the highlight here as the guard announces, “Who was your accomplice? Tell me her name or I shall stick your head in the toilet”!
The main claim to infamy the film has is for the unusual use in an unusual place of a razor blade, which results in a nasty shock for one ‘member’ of the Nazi party!

Mentio of the dialogue also brings us to the films most entertaining ingredient…Euro-Sleaze Maestro John Steiner.
Steiner (dressed in his shiny black SS uniform with bright white piping and decorations) is just perfection and portrays the arrogant, slimy, cruel, camp and utterly sadistic Enna with great relish

And the fact that when angry his rasping, effeminate voice bursts into a shrill, heavily accented, cacophony of teeth-champing camp only adds to the fun, “You lurid slut”! “Touch her…Touch her nipple…Gently”!!
Ranting highlight has to be during a sequence where Enna forces two women to fellate him while he makes warped ’romantic’ speeches to Tanya who refuses to even look at him, “You have to look!! You can’t refuse my spectacle”!!!

But the pinnacle has to be a fire-lit scene where he is getting a massage from his brutish henchman Doberman (Giorgio Cerioni). As Doberman rubs his naked chest (accompanied by lilting violins!) Steiner delivers some corking lines of dialogue like, “I vant to feel you fingers more, strong, penetrating. Your hands for me are like a language though which you speak to me Doberman…Massage my leg like a good doggy”.
Great stuff! And that it leads to a spot of cruelty tipped, high camp sodomy only makes it more effective!
God bless you John Steiner!

So we have a movie of contradictions. It’s grim, dour and realistic and yet also has many moments of all out Exploitation that go way over the top purely to deliver some twisted entertainment in a movie that is basically darker and more subdued in pace and atmosphere than most of it’s kind.
And this approach (whether by design or fluke, as we are talking a purely Exploitative sub-genre here) actually gives the film a slightly more reflective and serious mood to the way it treats the real victims of such atrocities.
But only a bit…as Steiner’s glorious performance and frequent nudity soon bring it back down into the delightfully smelly gutter.