The Damned

Luchino Visconti's The Damned (1969) falls just short of a masterpiece. It's a warped large-scale melodrama, tying the self-destruction of a German steel family to the rise of Nazism. Only some questionable plotting hurts a remarkable film.

Steel magnate Joachim von Essenbeck (Albrecht Schoenhals) is murdered on February 27th, 1933, the day of the Reichstag fire. Police suspect Joachim's liberal nephew Herbert Thall (Umberto Orsini), but it was actually Frederick Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde), angry at being passed over for Essenbeck's presidency. With the help of SS leader Aschenbach (Helmut Griem) Frederick secures the presidency in exchange for arms and political support. But Frederick faces internal rivals: Joachim's perverted son Martin (Helmut Berger), the "rightful heir"; his cousin, SA roughneck Konstantin (Rene Koldehoff); and most dangerous of all, Martin's mother Sophie (Ingrid Thulin).

Visconti trades The Leopard and Senso's melancholy for a darker portrait of aristocratic decay. Old-line Joachim carefully carved out corporate independence, which his heirs abandon in their scramble for power. Frederick's so single-minded that he's easily manipulated by both Sophie and Aschenbach. Martin first appears in drag and quickly proves a child molester. One victim kills herself, leaving Martin open to blackmail by Konstantin. Konstantin himself is checkmated when the Brownshirts fall out of favor. The Essenbecks are above the law, yet vulnerable to extortion: reputation is more important than legality. Aschenbach does little more than let the Essenbecks eat themselves alive.

The Damned brilliantly contrasts upper-class suicide with Nazism. Historically Hitler easily co-opted industries like Krupp and IG Farben, dispelling conservative fears of National Socialism with lucrative contracts. We see Nazi officials in conflict with the populist SA, the class-minded Wehrmacht and big industry. Aschenbach manipulates each faction, appeasing them until they can be subsumed by the state. Ernst Rohm's SA is eliminated wholesale, the Army and Essenbeck forced to cut deals. Decadent aristocracy gives way to a frightening New Order, whose outward morality masks a far greater evil.

Visconti subverts his usual photographic elegance, here shooting in dark tones emphasizing squalid details. The film's centerpiece is an SA retreat which degenerates into a drunken orgy and finally a massacre when SS death squads arrive. Drawing loosely on the Night of the Long Knives, when Hitler purged the unreliable Brownshirts, it's a hypnotic spectacle of depravity and graphic violence.

The Damned only falters in its last half hour. Having so effectively set the stage, Visconti rushes the plot, tying up loose ends without resolving them. One character makes an unexpected 11th hour reappearance without registering much. Then there's Martin's crowning act of depravity: he goes from credible monster to cartoon grotesque. The final wedding scene is a macabre anti-climax, summed up with a trite double exposure effect.

Dirk Bogarde heads a flawless ensemble. He plays against-type as a frightening power-grabber shocked when events turn against him. Rene Koldehoff makes a cheerfully hateful thug; his paunchy figure and gravelly dubbing voice recall a Teutonic Lee J. Cobb. Renaud Verley gets an affecting character arc, going from sensitive musician to vengeful Nazi. Charlotte Rampling and Florinda Bolkan have minor roles.

Three performers standout. Helmut Berger (Visconti's then-lover) is a genuinely disturbing monster, all preening mannerisms, scarce-hidden perversion and whiny entitlement. Ingrid Thulin makes a chilling reptilian schemer crossing Queen Gertrude and Lady Macbeth. Helmut Griem's SS chief is the real villain, a charming but cold-blooded ideologue who makes mincemeat of the Essenbecks.

The Damned is a fine movie. Perhaps some script fine-tuning (and downplaying of sordidness) would have helped, but it's still a profoundly unsettling experience.