DIRECTOR: Luchino Visconti
Many of the old German families sided with Hitler in the closing days of the Weimar Republic. Luchino Visconti’s “The Damned” centers on the Essenbecks (loosely based on the Krupp family) beginning on the night of the Reichstag fire in early 1933 when the family patriarch Baron Joachim von Essenbeck, is murdered during a family gathering to the Night of the Long Knives and the purge of the SA in 1934.
The patriarch’s death sparks a vicious struggle for control of the family business.
- Friedrich Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde), a manager allied with Nazi forces, maneuvers to seize power.
- Sophie von Essenbeck (Ingrid Thulin), the Baron’s daughter-in-law, schemes alongside him.
- Martin von Essenbeck (Helmut Berger), the decadent heir, becomes increasingly unstable and is manipulated by others.
- The family fortunes are tied to Nazi brutality. Betrayals, incestuous relationships, and moral corruption consume the family. By the end, the Essenbecks are destroyed from within, symbolizing the broader collapse of Germany’s aristocracy under fascism.
After a grand opening, the film misfires. Part of the reason is that Visconti edited the film around his then-lover Helmut Berger, whose famous Marlene Dietrich impersonation was a minor sensation. However, a major blow came in the US where 12 minutes of footage had to be cut to go from an X to an R rating by the MPAA.
German title: “Gotterdammerung.”
Original, Oscar-nominated screenplay by Nicola Badalucco, Enrico Medioli and Visconti.
With Charlotte Rampling and Helmut Griem
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