Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS is a 1974 motion picture produced in the USA. The film was directed by Don Edmonds, produced by David F. Friedman and written by Jonah Royston.
It starred Dyanne Thorne as "Ilsa," commandante of a Nazi concentration camp; her character was very loosely based on that of Ilse Koch. Ilsa conducts sadistic scientific experiments designed to demonstrate that women are more capable of enduring pain than men are, and therefore should be allowed to fight in the army. Ilsa is also portrayed as having a voracious sexual appetite for men, whom she then tortures and kills. The film was made on the set of the TV series Hogan's Heroes. "The Butcheress" from BloodRayne was modeled on Ilsa. [1] [May 2007]
The film spawned several sequels:
- Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976)
- Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia (1977)
- Ilsa, the Wicked Warden (1977) (this title is actually not an adventure of the Ilsa character. Thorne plays the female lead who is much like Ilsa but is called Greta, but renovations changed parts of the movie to make it look like another Ilsa movie. Original Title: Greta - Haus ohne Männer[Greta-House Without Men]. AKA: Wanda the Wicked Warden; Greta the Mad Butcher)
These latter films are standard women in prison films which use exotic settings to render the exaggerated sadism of the plots more plausible. She Wolf of the SS is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Despite this stated attempt at cultural sensitivity, the film is banned in Germany.
Its over-the-top subject matter has turned the film into a cult movie. Perhaps the best explanation for its notoriety is that it is a cinematic version of the "men's adventure" subgenre of pulp magazine. Nazis tormenting damsels in distress were perennial favourite subjects for the lurid, sub-pornographic covers of sensationalistic "true adventure" magazines such as Argosy in the 1950s and 1960s; the film seeks to be a more explicit reversal of the same sort of sexual fantasy.
Recently, in the 2007 motion picture Grindhouse, a faux trailer for a film called Werewolf Women of the S.S. by Rob Zombie was shown, who was inspired by Ilsa. The lead female officer, Eva Krupp (played by Zombie's wife, Sheri Moon), can also be seen as an Ilsa-like character.
