Kitty Exploitation: Countdown to Halloween (Day 5)

FRAULEIN DEVIL

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FRAULEIN KITTY

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CAPTIVE WOMEN 4

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ELSA: FRAULEIN SS

Fraulein Kitty is the sadistic overseer of a Third Reich "Pleasure Train" loaded with young women to serve Hitler's combat officers. The pitiless Kitty delights in torturing and killing suspected traitors to the Fuhrer. French partisans have vowed to stop this evil train at all costs. Kitty's ex-lover Franz is the train's interpreter. Franz falls in love with Liselotte, one of the train's hostesses who secretly works for the Resistance. The vengeful Kitty looses her fury on the lovers...but the train is about to be attacked by partisans who plan a battle to the death!

This cut of the film—the one Wizard Video purchased and distributed—is an American dubbed French film released in 1977 featuring mostly German speaking characters.  So it’s a strange one to get your head around, especially when you hear the soldiers marching in German while the mouths are moving in French and the regular dialog is English.

I figured I’d start the VHS viewing with this movie because it’s really the least Halloween adjacent.  In fact, as a Nazisploitation film, and I’m not sure it even comes close.

Oh sure, the horrors of war and all that, but this has less to do with war and more to do with the machinery of oppression.  I mean, it really implies more about the hatred the Nazis were pushing than anything else.  Hell, it’s set on a TRAIN.  And we all don’t need to get hit over the head with a hammer to get that implication.

FRAULEIN DEVIL begins with loads of actual footage of Hitler speechifying and WW2 war footage.  Altogether too much of it, but I gotta say it does set the time (near the end of the war) and place (German occupied France).  And what aids that quite a lot is the sets and costumes used in the opening scene featuring a Nazi headquarters and throughout the seemingly endless train scenes.

Unfortunately, the film is pretty bad—even for an exploitation film.  In fact, it’s very weak.  It’s almost as if the makers were going for a kinder, gentler soft core gore flick.  There’s virtually no gore and the soft core leaves one looking for more.  The one highlight is the scene where a German officer who looks like Dr. Evil is tortured…and that’s mildly entertaining because  it would’ve been funny had it actually been Mike Meyer’s villain… but alas, no.

One does get a train full of women forced into white slavery, an evil dominatrix who is quite a Nazi bitch (for which Malisa Longo deserves some praise), about a half dozen scenes of executions and gunplay and a wee bit of the French Resistance—viva la France!

Gotta go low, so low on this score that “B” isn’t even close…

FRAULEIN DEVIL

My Grade:  “F”

May this VHS sit upon the dash of an Oldsmobile ’88 and melt in the hot sun during the peak of the hottest Florida Summer.

Video Vamp: The Countdown to Halloween (Day 2)

Since I had no solid plans for my Halloween blog this year, I figured I would wing it.  I’ve done it before, but not up to my own expectations.  I always have a few ideas come the lonesome October, but sometimes an overarching theme avoids reach.  So I figured that this year would probably be much the same…

And then I looked to my movie shelves… I’ve got a lot of them.

And then I remembered all the VHS tapes of old taped shows I’ve yet to transfer to DVD.  And then I saw a handful of oversized VHS boxes that I’d been meaning to view for about a year.  They are pretty neat.

Last year, while doing my usual orders for the comic book store where I work, I came across a listing in the Diamond Comic Distributers monthly Previews catalog for about three dozen VHS tapes being offered by Full Moon Features…

WIZARD VIDEO

“Lost in a warehouse for 33 years! The amazing big box Wizard Video Collection! An early pioneer in the home video business, Charles Band started both MEDA HOME ENTERTAINMENT in the late 70's and WIZARD VIDEO in 1980.

After releasing features like THE GROOVE TUBE, FLESH GORDON and TUNNELVISION in the standard VHS box format, WIZARD VIDEO introduced the oversized "big VHS box" which featured lurid titles such as ZOMBIE, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, DEMONIAC & BREEDERS! After a few short years of these big VHS box releases WIZARD VIDEO returned to the standard size VHS box as retailers were quickly running out of shelf space. A fond memory for people who grew up in the video store era of the early 80's - the big VHS box has become a rare collectable due to its scarcity and (usually poor) condition. 

And now a treasure trove of original big VHS boxes was found late last year in one of Charles Band's and Full Moon's many overcrowded warehouses! 36 features are represented in this discovery with quantities ranging from 180 boxes to 420 boxes. The 30+ year old big VHS boxes are in mint condition as they have never been out of their original shipping boxes!

This unique sale!

Beginning February 12th and for every month thereafter four of these 36 Wizard Video big box VHS cassettes will go on sale. They will contain the original program newly duplicated on VHS in a black clam shell which will be in the original box.

This is truly a rare discovery and little part of the early days of the home video explosion!”

And so, even with the quantities as limited as they were, I ordered a handful of these big box VHS videocassettes.  I have yet to view them, partly because I was unsure if I had a working VCR.  I was pretty sure the last working one I had had eaten the last tape I tried to play in it.  But we’re in the proper season for both cheesy B-Grade horror and Mad Doctor antics and, so, I’m willing to take the risk!  More than crazy enough to sacrifice VHS tape to the Great Pumpkin if there’s a chance for real, unwholesome, schlocky goodness!

Each week I will attempt to watch and review one of the following five features for The Goods:

A Virgin Among The Living Dead

Click to Enlarge for a better look at the art stolen from Marvel Comics' Marvel Zombie, by Pablo Marcos, methinks!

Headless Eyes

The Screaming Dead

The Possessor

Fraulein Devil

More on each of these titles as they arrive on the blog individually!

As for the rest of the days...

we'll figure it out.

We've got, what, twenty-nine more of these to go?