The British film censors are still confusing offensiveness for dangerousness as they ban yet another former Video Nasty.
A while ago, we wrote about how Love Camp 7 – a somewhat kitsch and outrageous 1967 Naziploitation movie – represented what remained beyond the pale for the British film censors. In case you had any doubts about just what it was about that film that so upset the censors that they felt the need to refuse it a certificate – ban it, in other, less mealy-mouthed words – then guess no longer. The BBFC have just given the boot to Gestapo’s Last Orgy.
Should the title leave you in any doubt, then Gestapo’s Last Orgy – also known as Last Orgies of the Third Reich – is also Naziploitation, though on a somewhat different level than Love Camp 7, which was an American ‘roughie’ from the sexploitation days, heavy on the bondage and flagellation but cheerfully crude and cheesy. The idea of anyone being corrupted by a film so clearly of its time and obviously tongue-in-cheek has long seemed ludicrous. Gestapo’s Last Orgy, on the other hand, is a slick Italian film from 1976, well crafted and unremittingly bleak as it combines sex and violence – less in the BDSM style of Love Camp 7, and more in a dark, taboo-pushing manner. You can read our thoughts on the film here.
That the film pushes at boundaries of good taste and decency is not in question. But bad taste is not illegal. The real question is: will the film not only upset but also corrupt viewers? And that’s an interesting question to tangle with. The very idea that a work of fiction – a very clear work of fiction – can somehow deprave and corrupt an otherwise normal person (and make no mistake, the idea of ‘corruption’ is one of unbalancing the normal individual, not tipping an already morally disturbed individual over the edge) is one that belongs in a past that we have long left behind. There’s no scientific evidence to back it up, and the whole idea belongs more to the enforcement of morality – the prevention of ‘bad’ ideas entering the public sphere – than stopping actual harm to anyone.
The BBFC’s explanation for the refusal – typically buried away on their website rather than featured on their news pages – is oddly blunt and minimalist, given the significance of a film being banned in 2021. They state that the film is “largely composed of scenes of strong sadistic violence, humiliation, degradation and non-consensual sexual activity, including rape, all of which occurs within a clearly anti-Semitic context” (I’ve tidied up the dreadful spelling of the original post). Well, yes – it is about Nazis after all. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that most films about Nazis feature them behaving in an anti-Semitic manner. Are all these to be banned, too?
Notably, the BBFC passed the notorious SS Experiment Camp uncut some years ago, and viewers might question how the two films differ dramatically, other than Gestapo’s Last Orgy being a more serious, well-crafted film. It was presumably this fact that this film was passed that encouraged 88 Films, its UK distributor, to subsequently submit this film – we surely expect consistency from our censors, or else we might think that they are making things up as they go along, responding to whatever the latest bout of public hysteria is. Certainly, there is an obsession with Nazis right now in the sort of media and social circles that the BBFC move in. Perhaps the recent events in Washington were sitting heavy on the Board’s mind when they watched this film, and the fear that watching it might make the thousand or so (if 88 were lucky) cult movie enthusiasts who bought the blu-ray into Far-Right fanatics was too much. The fact that the Nazis are hardly the heroes of the film is neither here nor there.
And so Gestapo’s Last Orgy joins that elite group of films to be banned both as Video Nasties and by the post-James Ferman, ‘liberal’ BBFC. To highlight the pointlessness of all this hand-wringing though, both this and Love Camp 7 are available to watch on YouTube, where they are likely to be seen by far more people than would have ever bought the films on disc. It rather makes a mockery of the whole situation, at least until that ‘loophole’ is closed and all YouTube uploads have to be approved by the censors.
DAVID FLINT
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It was the only VHS I ever had seized by customs back in the day, when my friend in Rome tried sending me the uncut Italian tape, which ran a good 20 minutes longer than the already banned UK one.
It’s interesting you mention the current political climate as a factor – did they spot the ’88’ films logo and make the association with Hitler? See this link (https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/88) I can’t say I knew about it myself until someone pointed it out to me. It was brought up on some forum or other years ago, and their defence was that it was their favourite year for films released in the 1980s (although it was then pointed out that given the wealth of films released in that decade, 1988 isn’t what one would call the peak year, so to speak – you’d probably choose something about earlier)
But ’88’ does have a certain ring to it – maybe the symmetry of the numbers? I believe their (88 Films) story and don’t buy the connection – but a BBFC examiner with knowledge of the number’s history connected to Hitler may well have made that association.
Some food for thought,
Interesting. I don’t for a moment believe that 88 Films are Nazis, and the BBFC usually have enough of a relationship with labels to know who and what they are – and in any case, they are still supposed to judge submitted films on content, not on who submitted it.
Obviously, I think we might all raise eyebrows at anyone who thinks 1988 was the peak year for cinema, but of course, it depends on how old they are – if that was the year that they reached the age when everything kicked in for them in terms of movie watching, fair enough. And as you say, it sounds better than 87 or 89 as a name.
Unfortunate connections, but as more and more things are listed as hate symbols, I suspect that more innocent parties will be labelled with such accusations. Rather like when beauty salons and shops called Isis found their windows put in by idiots who assumed that brazenly Islamic State had set up an office on their high street.