Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

MartinHafer "The Damned" is pretty much what I expected from a Luchino Visconti epic from the 1960s...it's very long, very slow and very mannered. However, unlike some of his other tediously long films ("The Leopard" and "Death in Venice", it is more watchable...possibly because it's so perverse.The film is about a rich industrialist family in Nazi during the early years (1933 or so onward towards WWII). At the beginning, they seem relatively normal though over the course of the film, these conniving and avaricious folks sell their souls to the Nazi regime in order to maintain power and financial success. In the process, some get wrapped up in the SA (and are eventually destroyed), rape, incest (multiple times), cross-dressing and more...until by the end of the film most of them are dead and the remaining family member is a soul-less ghoul of a man.The story is a decent overview of the German industrialists in general. They were an evil lot who profited tremendously from the build up to the war. Plus, unlike most WWII films, you really see nothing of the country except life for this family. So, the persecution of Jews, Hitler's seizing power and much more are only mentioned in the film as opposed to being directly dealt with in the story. This was NOT a bad thing and makes the film very unique. What also is unique is how incredibly perverse everyone is. There is a lot of nudity...some of which is quite incestuous and kinky. So, it's clearly NOT a film to show the kids or your mother or Reverend Jenkins!Another important thing I must mention is the slowness of the film. It is NOT a movie the average person would enjoy and that is a trademark of many of Visconti's later films. This isn't so much a criticism but an observation. I much prefer his earlier work (such as "Rocco and His Brothers") but many seem to like his slow epics. To each his own....but like his other films, "The Damned" might have been better with a bit of editing and tightening up of the story.

cynthiahost Because of the incest and child molestation and violence it was given an x rating.Then it became the first X rated movie to premiere on t.v in the c.b.s. late show movie on Thursday back in 1973.the next day it drew protest and offense against it being broad cast on public commercial t.v.The movie had no real sex in it.It really p.g.I under stand the story now.A family all owns a steel mill under the third Reich.They are all trying to kill each other so that the other can take control.This is like Dynasty and Falcon crest.Yes Zarah Leander voice make an appearance in the film.I'm wondering if they paid her for it.I don't know if she would have want to the bad old days.But it was a sixties modern song ,not in sync with the thirties.It's Gross Pa.Pa's birthday.The head of the steel industry, played by Albrecht Schoenhals, who was originally a doctor and later became a top male lead of German and Austrian films of the thirties and forties,who was older already.One of his grand sons Martin ,played by helmet Burger is doing a Marlene Dietrich drag act, give you the impression that he is gay ! Wrong!He an effeminate heterosexual male who is a pedophile and is emotionally molest by his mother ,played by Ingrid Thulin.One of the magnates sons Baron Konstatin , played by Reinhard Kolldehoff, who is rough macho and mean and wants his son Gunther,played by Renaud Verley , to quit school and work at the steel mill.It turn out that he's the closet queen, the baron .It seems that Luciano was suggesting that because of Roamer , most of the male of the Nazi party was gay.Well some one kills grandpa so that the relative can take over his job.They accuse a cousin ,Herbert ,played by UmBerto Orsini, so he takes off.The baron goes of to his gay camp on the lake , oh really!,Where he and his throw buddies are surprised attack orchestrated by another cousin Aschnebach,who is member of the S.a., with the aid of dirk, to eliminate another family member taking over the steel company.Martin little girl friend has gotten syphilis from him and she ends up killing her self.Ashnebach black male Martin to give up the stock in the company,but, his Mother played by Ingrid Thulin stops that as she actually has control rove the steel company , she persuade Aschneback ,played by Helmret Griem,who was also chosen to show up in another same type of movie in 1972 Cabaret,almost in the same role Well it is finally revealed who killed Gross Papa.It was martin ,he put Gunther up to it.Now more macho Martin want the job. He ends up raping his mother for revenge He end up ing the guard and pushing his parents to a Nazi wedding,that they end up kill themselves.Imagine if they did a night time weakly t,v show based on this movie," Meet the Essenbecks.Of course they have to change it a bit.It would of been like Hogans Heroes dramatic style.Great Entertainment. 01/04/13

Maciste_Brother Visconti's THE DAMNED has generated a lot of reviews, articles and debates since its release in 1969. Writing a review for it seems almost pointless because almost everything has been written about it. What more can one add to the debate? THE DAMNED is a masterpiece, that goes without saying. It's a film that stands by its own, even compared to the director's other films. What's really beautiful about THE DAMNED is that it's quite obvious and not very subtle about it's portrayal of aristocratic decadence. For those who find the movie to be too long and too serious, well, were you watching the same film? There's so many levels of dark over-the-top humor in it that I lost count after a while. If THE DAMNED is seen by everyone has a masterpiece, it should only be described, imo, as a camp masterpiece. I've never seen such a brilliant depiction of decadence from such an obvious gay point of view, ever. Made in 1969 no less. Way before Fassbinder and other filmmakers who made film after film camping up the sordid lives of heterosexuals (war, wealth, power, etc).Though never all and out humorous, THE DAMNED is skewed in such a extremely dry sardonic manner that I started giggling at many scenes. The moment when this dark humor came to the fore occurred halfway into the movie, when we see a huge portrait of the baron at the head office. The portrait is a huge B&W of the man's angry face. The portrait is so ridiculous that I finally laughed out loud. There's no way that such an unflattering portrait would exist in reality. He looks like Boris Karloff on a bad day. And the reason why THE DAMNED is not to be taken too seriously.The whole film feels and looks like a 3 hour fashion magazine layout. The pure chic decadence it reeks is timeless. After watching the film, I now realize that most fashion designers and photographers of today have been copying the look and style of THE DAMNED. Sometimes, the whole film appears to be just surface, certainly because the characters that inhabit this world are so implausible, so over-the-top that they're divorced from any reality. Certainly the one wonderfully played by Helmut Berger (who was also in that Nazi "exploitation" flick, SALON KITTY). What a memorable character but, frankly, not a very realistic one. More of a symbolic one. And the confusing use of English (for most of the film) and German (for the very long orgy/massacre scene) enhances this detached symbolic approach. In fact, the whole film is pure symbolism. And it's quite brilliant in its use of symbolism: a wealthy aristocratic family is always filled with decadent family scheming schemes but if there's one thing common about these families is that they're rarely affected by the outside world. These families live in worlds of their own, ruled by internal "laws" and "regulations" of their own. Visconti brilliantly uses this cloistered family dynamic coming apart before our very eyes to show how powerful and inescapable the rise of the Third Reich was and how something bigger than the wealthy family can filter into it and irrevocably control it because of the lack of morality that exists in such an aristocratic milieu. The aristocrats look down on the poor and less fortunate but here they are destroyed by a maniacal leader which came to power by preying on nationalistic fears of the general population. Oh the irony. I especially love the scenes with the maids and servants who never say anything or react to whatever happens around them. Visconti, who was raised and lived in such a milieu, is having way too much fun bringing down the Essenbeck family. THE DAMNED is definitely not for everyone but if you're game and you understand camp, this film is the pinnacle of camp. I doubt anything else will ever top it.

Armand I saw this movie like a tale about the power of helplessness. Like a corruption's foretaste. Luchino Visconti , in all his films, is only a witness. He describes, looks and confirms. His nostalgic search is form to define his interior world. "Fall of gods" is the description of crisis. A slice of hypocrisy and strange fight for preserve any illusion. The instincts dance and the colors of last ash. To have, to survive, to can. The Nazi era is a pretext. Like Pasolini, Visconti is interested to define the real filling. To present not a wrong world's faces but his last essence. The power is only the skin of fear. The words are feathers of a deep lie. A movie about a huge low spirits and about the impossibility of revenge. A play with a single character: mildness of death.