Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (Don Edmonds, 1975)

If you were to attempt to make a gripping drama about the day-to-day struggles that come with living at an SS run concentration camp during the Great Patriotic War, how would you start things off? Some might open on a small patch of flowers flourishing next to an electrified fence–you know, try to capture the dichotomy between the beauty of nature and the scourge that is manufactured oppression. Others might cut to the chase and opt for a closeup shot of a swastika flag gently flapping in the midday sun. Well, the director of the justifiably infamous Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS doesn’t care what you think, as he has decided that a side view shot of some mild commandant straddling followed by some not-so mild castration is the best way kick off your concentration camp movie. Right then and there, you know this film isn’t going to about illuminating the populace about the ills of Nazism, a discredited movement whose sole appeal was that they had cooler uniforms than their drab enemies. Particularly Karl Diebitsch and Walter Heck’s all-black SS uniform, manufactured by Hugo Boss. Utilizing the well-worn: titillate then repulse method of exploitation filmmaking, director Don Edmonds (Tender Loving Care) seems to revel in causing your aroused feelings to quickly turn into one’s of revulsion and disgust. Having us cheering on a man’s genitals to plunge as far as they can vaginally go one minute, only to have us wincing uncontrollably a mere ten seconds later when those very genitals are unceremoniously removed without even as much as a half-hearted auf Wiedersehen was a tad jarring.

If you enjoy watching men being tortured by female Nazis–and who doesn’t?–you better savour the first five minutes, because after that you won’t see any men harmed until at least the film’s chaotic coda (throats are slit, necks are garrotted). No, this particular camp, Medical Camp #9, is all about performing gruesome experiments on young women. The camp commandant (the mild straddler I alluded to earlier), a stern lass named Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne), wants to help the Third Reich by making its soldiers become more resilient. And if that means employing maggots (mealworms), infectious diseases, pressurized chambers, scalding hot water and electrified dildos, than so be it (you gotta support the Wehrmacht).

A new shipment of ladies arrives at the camp, and you can tell immediately that Ilsa doesn’t like Anna (Maria Marx) and Rosette (Jacqueline Giroux). The latter is merely an annoyance, in that she seems to ask way too many questions. It’s the former who gets Ilsa’s panzer panties all in a twist. You could sense the tension between then when they first meet. The way Anna stood naked before her, proudly displaying her no-nonsense breasts and bulbous pubic region seemed to irk Ilsa (the others sheepishly attempted to shield those particular areas with a balled up clump of their ratty clothes). However, the fact she won’t satisfy the shapely commandant’s perverted desire to hear her subjects scream whenever she would violently poke and prod them is what really puts Anna’s organic structure in danger.

What these spunky gals need is a couple of strapping men. And wouldn’t you know it, there are a bunch living in a dorm across the way. Employing prisoners of war and other riffraff to do menial work, the camp has a sizable number of non-Nazi men to choose from. The two Anna and Rosette convince to assist their cause are a dapper American newcomer named Wolfe (Gregory Knoph) and Mario (Tony Mumolo), a wily camp veteran.

If Mario has the demeanor of a man who has no testicles, well, that’s because he doesn’t have any testicles. His sole reason for helping the girls is based on his lack of testicles. In fact, almost every facet of his existence revolves around his missing testicles and exacting revenge on the person who removed them from their scrotal perch.

You see, while Ilsa loves to torture people for the sake of national security, she also loves cock. You could say it’s her one true weakness, that, and an inability to say no to creepy Obergruppenführers when they inevitably ask her to expel urine on them. Her insatiable need to have an erect penis immersed inside the pure, reasonably unsullied confines of Aryan vag on a semi-regular basis is actually what leads to her downfall. She acquirers her daily allocation of cock from the ranks of the camp workers, and if their cock doesn’t meet with her high standards (i.e. hump heartily until she achieves orgasm), she will instruct her black clad minions to haul you down to the lab, where she will personally take away your junk.

When Wolfe is eventually summed to stick his prick in Ilsa’s shock-haired tissue box, Mario shoots him a “dude, your balls are so going to be in a jar by sunup” look. What Mario doesn’t know is that Wolfe has a trick up his sleeve–his sleeve being his penis. As Ilsa points out, it’s not exactly the largest rake in the tool shed–his rake being his penis. But as she soon finds out, its thrusting prowess is second to none. Craving its long lasting power like were an overly buttered piece of toast, Ilsa has become so captivated by Wolfe’s unflappable shaft, that her dedication to sadism seems to waver over the course of the film. Actually, the opposite happens, as her desire to make Anna scream hits a fever pitch. Nevertheless, it’s her obsession with Wolfe’s steady member and Anna’s plucky determination that cause the rebellion’s plans to move forward at an accelerated pace.

I know what you’re thinking. You mean to tell me, the fate of democracy depends on one man’s ability to not shoot his goo inside a curvy blonde Nazi doctor in an expedient manner? Ridiculous as it sounds, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS is all about postponing the ejection of seminal fluid. Simple as that. Anybody who tries to tell you otherwise has obviously chosen to approach the film from a perspective that is different than mine, and I respect that. But deep down they know I’m sort of right.

The off and on nature of Dyanne Thorne‘s German accent was, I wanna say, “adorable,” but that doesn’t feel right. Okay, how ’bout this: The manner in which Dyanne Thorne‘s German accent seemed to fluctuate from scene to scene was oddly endearing. Yeah, that’ll work. To be fair, the only instance where I recall this actually happening occurred whenever she would say the word “Reich,” as in the “Third Reich.” At first, I noticed that she pronounced in the Anglo-American way. But then she started saying it the German way. It’s as if her accent gradually got better as the film progressed.

As far as lady Nazi’s go, Dyanne Thorne (Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks) isn’t really my type. On top of being cruel, I like my lady Nazis to be card carrying members of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee (a.k.a.Winzig Brüstchen Ausschuss). Also, Ilsa’s ample protrusions repeatedly hampered the symmetry of her fabulous SS uniform. Although, I thought the wide-eyed pride of Greenwich, Connecticut looked amazing whilst standing in front of a blood-spattered wall.

Is it possible for one to grow tired of female pubic hair? I didn’t think it was humanly possible, but there were a few moments during this film where I actually thought to myself: “Someone get that poor woman a pair of pants. Her clit’s gonna get hypothermia.” But then again, it’s pretty hard to electrocute a person’s genitals if they’re wearing pants.

The mayhem of the finale was an unbelievable mishmash of outdoor stabbings, stealthy strangulation, topless knife-wielding, pulsating arterial spray (thanks to makeup artist Joe Blasco), and bullet-ridden corpses. Some of the deaths, especially the one’s performed by the guys who take their orders from an ex-poultry farmer/wannabe Mongolian, were wonderfully staged. It’s the shame Ilsa and her female subordinates didn’t wear skirts throughout the film, because that would have made things perfect. Yeah, that’s right, perfect. Sure, the torture scenes are a bit much at times, there’s no mention of Alfred Naujocks, and the camp seemed to lack guard dogs, but there’s no denying that this film is a well-made piece of exploitative trash.

Oh, and just for the record, the skirts I would have chosen for the female Nazis would have been black with a smallish slit in the back. As far as length goes, I would say, oh, about ten centimetres above the knee. I think that would allow you to commit unspeakable atrocities and still look chic at the same time.