Review: Elsa Fraulein SS
DVD: Elsa Fraulein SS (1977)
Having previously seen Malisa Longo in the Screenbound release of Helga, She Wolf of Stilberg, there was a sense of déjà vu while watching her in Elsa Fraulein SS which was released into cinemas a year before Helga. Essentially playing a very similar character, her acting chops are not particularly stretched…unlike the legs of most of the female cast who once again are there to be stripped naked and used in a sex scene.
A train full of women is being sent to the Eastern front to help raise the spirits of the German army who are currently on the back foot as WWII rages. The war effort is exaggerated by a series of stock movie scenes from WWII which help to pad out Elsa’s already slim 80 minute running time. Elsa (an ex-prostitute) is put in charge of the train, which is also serving as a way to test the loyalty of current Nazi soldiers. While the usual softcore rumpy pumpy is happening aboard the train, the French resistance is planning to derail it and strike a blow against the Third Reich.
Elsa Fraulein SS is tame compared with the majority of other Nazisploitation that were popular at the time, and even the sex and violence is neither titillating or shocking. This negates what are probably the main 2 reasons why this genre became so popular; boobs and blood. Even though people get shot point blank in the head, no claret is spattered across the screen and instead the poor victim just slumps to the floor, and while there are a plethora of boobs on show, the inevitable sex scenes are damper than the proverbial damp squib.
The Nazisploitation genre is niche to begin with, but then to dilute it within an inch of its life takes away any reason to watch, unless you are an avid ‘boob watcher’ and want to tick a few more mammaries off your list. Add to this the fact that the movie plods along at a very sedate pace, which makes the running time seem far longer than the 80 minutes that it is, and you have a movie where you’re constantly hoping that the action will pick up soon, but it inevitably doesn’t.
While I can’t find anything to recommend about the movie, Screenbound Entertainment have done another great job of the packaging and once again give a reversible sleeve, 3 collectable art cards and a numbered spine for all of us OCD collectors that just HAVE to have them all.
Elsa Fraulein SS is definitely one for completists only.
Review by Dave (host of 60 Minutes With) from a retail disc kindly supplied by Aim Publicity.
