Salon Kitty (1976) on Netflix
Wallenberg, an SS commandant, wires Kitty Kellermann's Berlin brothel and replaces her girls with informants to spy on the Nazi and foreign clients. Kitty, the madam, is forced to comply.
- Netflix2.7/5
- IMDb5.4/105,757 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes29%
Trailer
Plot summary
On the eve of World War II, Wallenberg, an ambitious SS commandant, picks a group of female auxiliaries to work as prostitutes in an expensive Berlin brothel and gather intelligence on the Nazi officials and foreign dignitaries who visit it. The candidates are tested with SS men before they are accepted. The house is cleared of its regular girls, and Kitty Kellermann, its owner and madam, is forced to let them be deported and to keep the operation running. She doubts the newcomers and sets about training them. The building is wiretapped, and the women, Margherita among them, begin reporting on what their clients say.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Salon Kitty (1976)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Salon Kitty is built on the real Salon Kitty operation, in which the Sicherheitsdienst took over an expensive Berlin brothel, had it wiretapped, and replaced all its prostitutes with trained spies to gather information on Nazi party members and foreign dignitaries.
- The film's huge office set for the SS commandant Wallenberg allegedly had a genuine marble floor, because buying real marble was cheaper than building a mock-up version.
- For its American release the film was re-edited to play down its political overtones and sold as the sexploitation picture Madam Kitty with an X rating; Blue Underground later issued the uncut version as an unrated DVD and Blu-ray.
- Production designer Ken Adam had just suffered a nervous breakdown while working on Barry Lyndon, and he called his participation in Salon Kitty creatively regenerative.
- Salon Kitty, based on the real-life Nazi brothel spy operation of the same name, is considered among the progenitors of the Nazisploitation genre.
- Ken Adam designed Wallenberg's apartment on the film by drawing on his own memories of his family's apartment in World War II-era Berlin.
