HELGA: SHE WOLF OF STILBERG

In an imaginary country where a ruthless military dictatorship is in place, one of the president's collaborators, Elsa, has the courage to oppose General Steiner during a high-level meeting. The woman, accompanied by her lover Ugo Lombardi, is sent as punishment to run the Spilberg prison, where the inmates are either rebels or relatives of presumed such. When the beautiful Elisabetta, daughter of the resistance leader Vogel, is brought to the prison, Elsa falls for her, but the prisoner resists, finding the complicity of a soldier. At the time when everyone was making naziploitation and w.i.p., the French Patrice Rohmm even made two, back-to-back: "Fraulein Kitty" and "The Hot Beast of Spilberg". The first, which in the original is titled "Elsa Fraulein SS" with clear references to the cult of Don Edmonds "Ilsa the Beast of the SS", for the Italian distribution wanted to recall the brassiano "Salon Kitty", while the second, which is instead "Helga, the She-Wolf of Stilberg", in Italy is an evident lure for "Ilsa the Beast of the SS" and "The Beast in Heat". The fact is that these are two similar films, both shot in 1977 precisely to ride the wave of erotic films about Nazi concentration camps and with the same leading actors. In this case, we examine "The Hot Beast of Spilberg", which, unlike its twin and most similar films, does not explicitly state its connection to Nazism, setting the story in an imaginary country where a totalitarian regime nevertheless reigns. That said, it is still a mystery why, for the Italian edition of the film, Helga becomes Elsa (who was instead the protagonist of the twin film) and Stilberg turns into Spilberg (I hope the similarity with the name of the famous director of "Jaws" is just a coincidence!), this film is really little compared to the majority of the exponents of the genre to which it belongs. Of course, we are talking about a genre already questionable in itself, in which the repetitiveness of the situations and the mechanicity of the structure dominate, but usually, naziploitation films that respect themselves must have atrocious tortures and an abundant dose of unhealthy sex, in "The Hot Beast of Spilberg" this is lacking. No gore to speak of and the only traces of violence are found in a couple of scenes with attempted rape and some lashes on the naked bodies of the inmates. As for sex, there is a bit more, but these are softcore situations primarily of a lesbian nature in which that pruriently disturbing charge that characterizes these films is totally absent. What satisfies, however, of "The Hot Beast of Spilberg" is the formal care superior to the norm, with a rather careful direction and photography; the music, on the other hand, is frankly unlistenable. In the cast, Patrizia Gori and Malisa Longo stand out; the former, in the role of the rebel Elisabetta, became known for roles in low-budget crime films ("Rome drugged: the police cannot intervene"), little-known horror films ("A Scream in the Dark" by Elo Panacciò) and several erotica, including "Emanuelle and Francoise the Little Sisters" by Joe D'Amato. The star of so much genre cinema of the 70s and 80s, Malisa Longo, beautiful and very talented, plays the bisexual kapo Elsa, the true pivot of the film and capable of representing its only real interest. In the role of Ugo, Elsa's lover, is Dominique Aveline, actor of so much French hard cinema of the time. Otherwise, we are faced with a narratively irrelevant film and even too long for what it has to say, capable of easily descending into boredom. Recommended only to the die-hard naziploitation fans. Available on DVD from Mosaico Media.