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Vintage Wizard Video cover art is better than the film. Lurid, colorful and banned in the UK!
Entertaining Nazi troops aboard a train outfitted with hookers and hidden microphones!I'm not a fan of ILSA-SHE WOLF OF THE SS, which I saw (in an altered state of consciousness) at a Midnight Movie Ilsa triple bill in the late 1970s, but that at least had the Dominatrix-From-Hell aesthetics of Dyanne Thorne (cf Jess Franco's 1977 GRETA, HAUS OHNE MANNER, where her character's name was changed to Ilsa in the English language version). But Eurocine's 1977 ELSA FRAULEIN SS is a poor exploitation of that le bad cinema franchise of a generation ago. Ms Thorne had humor and a steelyard eroticism which Malisa Longo, as the title character here, cannot match.
I first saw this as one of the 1980's CAPTIVE WOMEN video series, as CAPTIVE WOMEN IV (another of the CAPTIVE WOMEN numbers is actually Jess Franco's 1980 Women-in-Peril German-Spanish coproduction LINDA). The ridiculous plot concerns the adventures of the Nazi operative Elsa as she commands a train equiped with special cars containing women forced into prostitution (Eurocine's HELLTRAIN was another 1977 Nazi-exploitationer which had basically the same plot with Monica Swinn in the Elsa/Ilsa role, this Alan Payet directed item is a bit more watchable, which isn't saying much). Elsa's stated mission (the officer who develops the idea is immediately executed) is to provide R&R for weary troops but the actual agenda involves exposing anti-Nazi plots. Who knows, maybe there was a Nazi deal to uncover traitors by having prostitutes weasel anti Hitler sentiments out of them while in bed, but I doubt it.
Ms. Longo is a rather impressive bitch goddess in such films in Al Bradley's WAR OF THE COSMOS (1978) and Fulci's CAT IN THE BRAIN (1990), but she doesn't get any direction or heat going here. Credited to "Mark Stern" (Patrice Rondard) the war action is as ineptly staged as the hi jinks in Elsa's boxcar.
Olivier Mathot (the homicide detective in EXORCISM and numerous roles in 1970's/80s Eurocie/Jess Franco titles) plays the obligatory "good Nazi" who, with the local partisans, puts an end to Elsa's railroading tactics. This boring, talky Euro nudie-roughie is not as nude or as rough as most other Nazi sexploitation from France and Italy of that era. You'll prove to be a better person than myself if you're able to sit through it without numerous sanity breaks.
The best thing about it is Pamela Stanford (30 October 1950, Fontainebleau, France
Birth Name: Monique Delaunay), LORNA, THE EXORCIST herself, and one of our favorite Eurotrash goddesses of the 1970's. She appears as Gundrun, and performs a rather hot cabaret number with Jess Franco actor-composer-collaborator Daniel White backing her up on the piano. She also appears in HELLTRAIN. M. White does not look happy to be involved in this affair.
Jess Franco directed a nonsexploitation World War II movie for Eurocine in 1990, WAR SONG, with Christopher Lee, which my friend Francesco Cesari finds rather interesting. I'm waiting to see this rather dialogue heavy melodrama in English, which I'll be reviewing here in the future. On cursory viewing I can report that it's certainly more interesting than ELSA FRAULEIN SS. Aka FRAULEIN DEVIL. Lina Wertmuller's great SEVEN BEAUTIES acts as a definitive critique of this entire unfortunate sub-genre.
This may all be a bit unfair to Ms. Longo, who has a fun website and appears to still be in good humor.: http://www.malisalongo.it/
Thanks to David Z, who is up for a battlefield promotion.
(C) Robert Monell, 2007
