The Captured Flesh (197?)

Think that Britain never made any Nazisploitation films? Well, then think again and meet ‘The Captured Flesh’ part of a series of softcore shorts made for the 8mm film market and sold and advertised through the top-shelf magazines of David Sullivan. Sullivan’s involvement with films like these is an abnormality in itself, his magazines having a policy of eschewing BDSM material, as a result of the man himself receiving an insider tip that that type of material was especially targeted during police raids on sex shops. Nevertheless the Nazi films were the recipient of unforgettably lurid full page ads in his magazines, with well known Sullivan company addresses listed in the ads.

Known collectively as ‘The Violators’ series, these films aren’t as you might imagine WW2 period pieces, rather they are set in an ‘alternative’ 1970s London had the Nazis won the second world war. Which I suppose qualifies The Violators series as a porno version of 1965’s ‘It Happened Here’. In this version of the 1970s, the British resistance hide out in a swanky London hotel, broadcasting anti-Nazi messages and planning air attacks on Nazi strongholds. Unfortunately, the resistance are also a rather horny bunch as well, and when one of the male freedom fighters takes his mind off the job in order to get one of the women into bed, the Nazis catch them in the act and lock everyone up in a prison camp.

The Captured Flesh is chiefly memorable for scenes of actors in full Nazi regalia driving around London in an open top car à la Keith Moon and Viv Stanshall, the filming of which must have turned a few heads. Unlike Derek Ford’s Diversions (1975) which never fully commits to its characters being Nazis, authentic SS paraphernalia is draped everywhere here. As to whether The Violators series gets as nasty as its Italian Nazisploitation counterparts, it is a little difficult to say on the basis of this, the series’ opening installment, which is more about setting up the premise. Things do turn tellingly sadistic towards the end of The Captured Flesh though, the male prisoner is kicked about by the Nazis, the women are stripped and raped, there is also a surprising amount of full frontal nudity from the actors playing Nazis. All hinting at further unpleasantness in future, thrilling installments in the series, which have grim sounding titles like ‘Dungeon Love’ and ‘No Mercy for Gina’.

As you might expect, little is known about the makers of these films ‘Casanova Film Productions’ although as if to prove they weren’t all about Nazis, Casanova also did their bit for 1970s race relations by making a series of inter-racial loops too (Black Magic, Brown Sugar, White Takes Black). Unusually for an 8mm production, The Captured Flesh sports elaborate opening titles more befitting a feature film. Naturally all of the names are phony pseudonyms seemingly designed to heap blame for the film onto Italians (‘director of photography: Antonio Nudo’) but don’t believe a word of it, we Brits were doing that Nazisploitation thing on the sly back then as well. It really did happen here.





Casanova Film’s contribution to race relations