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stalags_l
STALAGS Documentary explores the phenomenon of WWII-themed pulp porn novels in Israel in the early '60s
Presented by Moviefone

Credits

Limited Release: Apr 09, 2008; Rated: Unrated; Length: 63 Minutes; Genre: Documentary
B+
By Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is a film critic for EW

It was an underground scandal everyone knew about. The paperback book covers, with their busty, jackbooted sirens in swastikas, looked like '40s pulp drawings reimagined by Russ Meyer; beneath the covers unfolded tales of kinky commandants, SS dominatrices, and cowering POW slaves. This exposé of the Stalags porn-novel series, which flourished in Israel for two years following the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, appears, at first, to be an outré morsel of psychosexual history: Freud meets the Nazis meets the scars of those who survived them. Stalags' revelation, however, is that the Stalags series helped to mold Israeli attitudes toward the Holocaust that continue to this day. A gutsy, fascinating inquiry. B+


Posted Apr 11, 2008
 

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