The Damned (1969) Queer Film B-

DIRECTOR: Luchino Visconti

The old German industrial dynasties that helped usher Hitler to power provide the backdrop for Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (Götterdämmerung), a fevered chronicle of the Essenbecks—thinly veiled stand‑ins for the Krupp family. The story begins on the night of the Reichstag fire in 1933, when the family patriarch, Baron Joachim von Essenbeck, is murdered during a gathering meant to project unity. His death ignites a ruthless struggle for control of the steel empire just as the Nazi state consolidates its own power.

Friedrich Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde), an ambitious manager aligned with rising Nazi forces, maneuvers to seize the company. He is aided by Sophie von Essenbeck (Ingrid Thulin), the Baron’s calculating daughter‑in‑law, whose political instincts are as cold as her personal loyalties. At the center of the family vortex is Martin von Essenbeck (Helmut Berger), the decadent, unstable heir whose moral collapse mirrors the country’s descent. Manipulated by every faction around him, Martin becomes both pawn and emblem of a society surrendering itself to brutality.

As the family binds its fortunes to the Nazi apparatus, Visconti traces a descent into betrayal, incestuous entanglements, and spiritual rot. The film culminates in the Night of the Long Knives, where the purge of the SA becomes the final stage of the Essenbecks’ self‑destruction. By the end, the dynasty has devoured itself—Visconti’s operatic metaphor for the implosion of Germany’s aristocratic class under fascism.

After its grand, operatic opening, the film falters in part because Visconti shaped the narrative around Helmut Berger—his lover at the time—whose celebrated Marlene Dietrich impersonation had become a sensation and is echoed in the film. Its American release suffered an additional blow: twelve minutes were excised to reduce the MPAA rating from X to R, blunting the film’s sexual and political edge.

The screenplay—by Nicola Badalucco, Enrico Medioli, and Visconti—received an Academy Award nomination. It was the only time that Visconti was honored by AMPAS. The cast includes Charlotte Rampling and Helmut Griem, whose performances deepen the film’s portrait of a society sliding willingly into moral catastrophe.

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