(M61) The damned

Nazis. A family gathers to celebrate its elder's 70th birthday on the night of the Reichstag fire. There is Dirk Bogarde, the employee who has climbed to run the factory and now loves the elder's daughter. She has a son, Martin, who is bi and weird. There is one brother who belongs to the SA. There is one brother who is an enemy of Hitler. There is a cousin who belongs to the SS. The news of the Reichstag fire disturbs the celebration. The enemy of Hitler flees, but he leaves the gun, which Dirk Bogarde uses to kill the elder and frame that son. The member of the SA assumes that he will become the president of the company (the elder before death had appointed him as vice president), but Martin (who owns a lot of stock) under the influence of his mother appoints Dirk. Martin is overly friendly with a seven year old girl who lives next door to him and when the child (a Jew) has a fever she commits suicide. The suicide is used as blackmail by the member of the SA to force Martin to call a board meeting at which time the SA member will be made the new president. But before that happens comes the night of the long knives and the SS cousin takes Dirk Bogarde with to the massacre of the brownshirts and Dirk kills the SA brother. The SS cousin no longer needs Dirk and instead he puts his money on Martin, on whom he has the tapes of the confession of the malfeasance with the girl next door. And now Martin wants to become the leader of the company. The enemy of Hitler brother returns to turn himself in, because the Nazis are holding his daughters hostage. His wife has been killed trying to leave the country, but the girls are still alive and only when he turns himself in does the regime release his daughters. Dirk Bogarde and his wife are held prisoners in their castle and Martin wants his revenge against his mother. He sleeps with her. She is a drug addict. There is a Nazi wedding- are you Aryans? Do you have any diseases? Sign the register. Then wife and hubby go off to a side room and Martin leaves poison for them and they kill themselves and Martin is left alive and in charge, actually the SS cousin is in charge.

For 150 minutes it moved well. Interesting. B plus. (The cover picture indicates that it is about some kind of S and M Nazi topic but that is hardly the fact, Martin is a deviant, but his deviancy is a plot device rather than the focus of the movie.)