Shameless

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Movie
Original title Shameless
Country of production Austria
Germany
France
original language German
Publishing year 1968
length 74, 77 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Eddy Saller
script Eddy Saller
E. Neumayr
production Herbert Heidmann for Commerz-Film, Vienna
music Gerhard Heinz
camera Walter Partsch
cut Dagmar Koschu
occupation

Shameless is an Austro-German-French gangster , crime and exploitation film by Eddy Saller with the hitherto largely unknown Udo Kier in the lead role of an unscrupulous criminal climber and Rolf Eden as his adversary.

action

Alexander Pohlmann is just 20 years old and has big goals for himself. He doesn't want to continue the family tradition and work in the circus, but rather to pursue a career as a gangster in Frankfurt's underworld. He has chosen his new living environment accordingly, his "boys" are just as tough and unscrupulous hooligans and crooks with high demands as he is. Pohlmann and these guys put small traders under pressure and squeeze protection money from them. In addition, they hire inexperienced girls as prostitutes. The young criminals do not shy away from one or the other contract killing, even if it is that Pohlmann goes to the roof with a rifle and telescopic sight and does the dirty job himself from high above.

Things take a new course when one day Alexander meets the young dancer Annabella in a bar. Unlike the other girls in his circle, she has good manners and, as they say, comes from “a good stable”. Annabella studies at the university and earns only a little extra money as a dancer, stripper and occasional whore. Alexander uses his very own means to ensure that Annabella can now enter his service and plans to make the really big deal with her. He ceded them to the rich underworld man Kowalski, a very powerful and "big number" in Frankfurt. Annabella follows Alexander's will without hesitation, as she is in love with him. But Pohlmann is as cold as ice, feelings have no place in the life of the ripped-off criminal prodigy. He just wants lots of sex with her and gets it. And he also wants to earn a lot of money with her body.

Annabella is now "owned" by Kowalski, a windy entrepreneur who needs his body shop to build caravans that are used as rolling brothels. One night she goes on a train with his nephew through the bars of the city, and you get to know the alleged homosexual Michael Hohenberg in a bar. Annabella, already a bit tipsy, nevertheless tries to entangle and seduce the man in a playful way. Annabella does not see his obvious homosexuality as a hindrance. It even goes one better when Hohenberg is initially completely disinterested. When the artist leaves the restaurant, she follows him to his house. Hohenberg thinks her behavior is somehow cute and gets involved in Annabella's game.

The next day, the dancer wants to revisit her “latest conquest” when Annabella is brutally murdered in his house. There is a trial, with Michael Hohenberg as the accused. Although the influential man is acquitted, Annabella's father is deeply angry about this judgment, as he is firmly convinced that only "this gay" could have murdered his daughter. Annabella's father Guido then hires the dubious Pohlmann to beat out a confession of the murder from Hohenberg if necessary. Then Pohlmann should murder Hohenberg and make it look like a suicide: almost an admission of guilt. Pohlmann's people kidnap Hohenberg and give him a lot of trouble. But he continues to assert his innocence. Pohlmann's own research shows that someone else must actually be behind this bloody act. And his research leads straight to underworld boss Kowalski. With his knowledge, Pohlmann finally sees the chance to push Kowalski down from the throne of the underworld boss in order to then take his position himself - a very risky plan, as will soon become apparent, because now two gangs are crashing into each other ...

Production notes

Schamlos was created in 1968 and had its world premiere on October 3, 1968 in Germany. In Austria, the film is said to have only opened in the following month.

The film was Saller's second feature film, which he directed three years after his first film, Scourge of the Flesh , which premiered in 1965 and was a first-rate scandal. In Shameless , he expanded his recipe for success “Sex and Crime” in an even more exploitative way. At least, unlike on his debut, he was able to fall back on established employees in the technology area this time when he won over the experienced cameraman Walter Partsch and the internationally active outfitter Wolf Witzemann .

Walter Frank got the sound. Peter Leidenfrost took over the production management, Klaus Jüptner the production management.

Reviews

The lexicon of the international film saw the trash flick "Sex and Crime from Austria with shamelessly primitive dialogues."

In 2015, the Randfilm Festival described the film as a “real train station cinema made in Austria” and wrote: “Udo Kier and Rolf Eden glide through the night, doomed to failure, cool and sexy towards the sun and their own fate.”

The Standard judged the maker of Schamlos : "Eddy Saller, a virtuoso of German-language trash films."

The evening paper finally found this film a "bizarre excursion into the strange, strange world of the Austrian Russ Meyer ."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Shameless. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 26, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. Shamelessly on randfilm.de