The Night Porter (1974) on Netflix
Vienna, 1957. Lucia, married to an American conductor, meets Max again by chance. He is her hotel's night porter and the SS officer who tormented and protected her in a concentration camp.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb6.6/1016,705 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes67%
Trailer
Plot summary
Lucia, married to an American orchestra conductor, comes face to face with Max in the Vienna hotel where he works as the night porter. During the war he was an SS officer in the camp where Lucia, then a teenager interned for her father's socialist politics, was held; he tormented her and protected her, and their bond was sadomasochistic. The meeting revives it. Max is a reluctant member of a circle of former SS comrades who destroy documents and silence witnesses to hide their wartime record, and its leader, Hans Vogler, plans a mock trial of Max for his war crimes. Lucia, who could testify against him, is a threat to them all.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Night Porter (1974)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The budget, paid by the Italian distributor, ran out near the end of shooting the interiors at Cinecittà. Producer Robert Gordon Edwards had editor Franco Arcalli assemble a rough cut of the best scenes; on its basis Les Artistes Associés agreed to pay for the Vienna exteriors in exchange for French distribution rights.
- Romy Schneider turned down the role of Lucia, and Mia Farrow and Dominique Sanda were considered before Charlotte Rampling was cast; Rampling shot the film only four months after giving birth to her son.
- Cavani developed the idea for the film while making her 1965 documentary Women in the Resistance for Italian television on internment camps; during a halt in production caused by weather, she saw a woman placing a sheaf of roses at a former prisoner camp and approached her.
- Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogarde re-wrote and ad-libbed much of their dialogue, and Bogarde brought in Anthony Forwood to help rewrite the script uncredited. Bogarde seriously considered retiring from acting after the shoot, which he found very draining.
