R0 NTSC DVD
Severin Films
Web: http://www.severin-films.com
Some
months ago we reviewed the Danish release of The Sinful Dwarf from AWE. However,
at the time, there was no sign of a US release for the rare and perverse
classic. We are thrilled to note that since then Severin has released a superb
US release featuring a truly amazing condition print taken from a 35mm copy of
the film which Severin claims was found hidden in a janitor’s closet at The
Danish Film Institute !
Sinful
Dwarf is considered one of the rarest cult exploitation films. On its release
in 1873 Variety condemned the film as “repulsive”, further declaring “Torben
leers and lurches like a demented Bette Davis.”
For a long time it was very difficult
to find copies and most are seriously censored and in notoriously bad
condition. Severin has excelled once again and this is the only way to see this
obscure classic which includes enough nudity, sex and exploitation to make the
timid run from the room in disgust !
The film opens as a young woman wanders
innocently along the street without a worry in the world; she is approached by
a Dwarf named Olaf (Torben Bille) who is leading a little toy dog by the leash.
The young girl seems fascinating by Olaf and his dog and follows him home. They
reach where Olaf lives, an old boarding house, and he offers to show her his
large collection of toys, just as she begins to enjoy looking at the
collection, he knocks her out with his cane.
Peter (Tony Eades) is an unemployed
writer; Peter and his wife Mary (Anne Sparrow) are having a hard time making
ends meet. They decide to take a room in the boarding-house run by Olaf and his
mother Lila Lash. Lila Lash (Clara Keller) lives in the past when she was a cabaret
singer and spends the day steeped in gin.
It seems Lila and her son Olaf have
found a new way of covering their costs when the boarders stopped arriving.
They kidnap young woman and keep them in the attic addicted to heroin from
where they service customers, in other word’s they run a rather lively sex
trade. Olaf certainly enjoys his job and is a violent little character and this
is what makes the film so “politically incorrect”, he is the quintessential
evil Dwarf or Troll of fairy tales and Torben Bille plays the role with
frightening gusto. Clara Keller is also impressive as Lila Lash, when she is
drunk enough she reminisces with songs from the old days which are so bad you
want to scream. In one memorable scene, she whips one of the girls as she is
dressed as Marlene Dietrich singing a Dietrich classic. (If singing is the
word, she must have worked very hard to whine so horribly off tune !)
The cinematography makes this a
perversely well made exploitation film, the way in which the songs Lash sings
are cut to the abuse of the girls is very disconcerting. For example, in one
scene she is singing the song Choo Choo Bamba with Olaf on the piano and this
is intercut with scenes of a client having his “Choo Choo Bamba” with a girl
upstairs. Tasteless yes, but it certainly works. The whole of the film is well
edited, nicely show and surprisingly professional for such exploitative fare.
On top of the lively sex trade we have
a heroin smuggling ring using teddy bears which is co-ordinated by “Santa
Claus” who runs a toy shop. The obsession with toys and bears in many ways are
exemplified in Olaf who is a man-child, who on one level plays like a kid, yet
on another does what his mother requires and gives very brutal discipline to
the girls when required and indeed, seems to relish it. This constant
juxtaposition between toys, dolls and teddy bears and the sex trade and heroin
trafficking give the whole film a very perverse feel.
A
nice extra is the Featurette: The Severin Controversy which looks at the effect
this horrid film had on two young minds !!
This review will appear in Volume 2 No.2
(2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.
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