'THE DAMNED'.......THIS DYNASTY CAN'T TELL REICH FROM WRONG.......

The Damned (1969)   Some 50 years ago, BQ became obsessed with films and books about destroyed dynasties........

              And nobody did those kind of movies better than director Luchino Visconti, who himself came from a family of Italian aristocratic nobles.......

               Visconti favored Grand Opera-style epic sweep and found no better fit for this style than his wildly fictionalized version of the Krupp family of German industrialists..........who favored slave labor in their steel mills that cranked out armaments for Hitler and the Nazis......

                 To Marice Jarre's noisy, insistent title theme, the fiery shots of boiling, bubbling steel furnaces perfectly prepare you for what comes next........a grotesque, gruesome trip into hell itself.

                  After a contentious family dinner,the mighty Von Essenbeck dynasty doesn't take long to crumble. especially during the Nazi rise to power........its Baroness (Ingrid Thulin) is an ambitious Lady Macbeth, who plans to seize control of the company along with her lover and co-schemer (Dirk Bogarde).

                  After bumping off old Granpa Von E. and framing a anti-Nazi relative for the crime, Ingrid and Dirk also make sure to cozy up to the family's cousin in the S.S.(Helmut Griem, the perfect blonde Aryan supercreep).

                    What nobody counts on is the family's wild card, the Baroness's depraved son Martin (Helmut Berger, carrying on like he's in the Nazi Rocky Horror Picture Show)......

                     And what a piece of work is Martin.......a transvestite chanteuse who molests little girls (including his own young cousin)  in his spare time.  All this loathsome little worm needs for icing on his cake is to become a Nazi......and as Christophe Waltz put it in "Inglorious Basterds".....Der Bingo!

                   No need to describe any more plot.......take our word for it, depravity reigns supreme.....Helmut Griem's smiling S.S. monster puts it well, describing a Nazi society where morality's obsolete, anything's permissible and the slaughter of Jews isn't even a crime.

                   Visconti vividly illustrates this with the film's lengthy signature showpiece, the gory recreation of the "Night Of The Long Knives"......., Griem's S.S. in a bold move to consolidate and reinforce Hitler's power, stage a surprise massacre of the S.A.,their rival paramilitary group......which happens to include another blustery member of the rapidly diminishing Von Essenbeck clan.

                  As for Thulin and Bogarde, the would-be Macbeths........well they stand no chance against Berger, now flourishing amidst the Third Reich.......the only society that could embrace a cross-dressing pedophile with open arms.

                   With its stylish sets and costumes, rich color photography and over-the-top melodramatics, "The Damned" is one damned luxurious ride through hell.   And one of our forever 1960's favorites. 4 stars (****).