The Damned
Short description
The Damned (La caduta degli dei) is a 1969 drama set in Germany during the early years of Nazi rule. It follows the von Essenbeck family, wealthy owners of a steel company, as they adapt to life under the new regime. The family is divided over whether to support the government, and their internal rivalries play out against the power struggles between Nazi factions. The story spans from the Reichstag fire in 1933 to the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, when the SS carried out a purge of the SA. Family members become entangled in the violence of the period, with Herbert Thallman the most prominent among them to refuse cooperation and flee the country. An SS officer, Aschenbach, works to bring the family business under party control.
Luchino Visconti directed and co-wrote the film with Enrico Medioli and Nicola Badalucco. It was the eleventh of the fifteen films he directed in chronological order, released between The Stranger in 1967 and Death in Venice in 1971. The cast includes Dirk Bogarde as Frederick Bruckmann, Ingrid Thulin as Sophie von Essenbeck, Helmut Griem as Aschenbach, and Helmut Berger as Martin von Essenbeck, with 31 credited actors overall.
The film had a budget of 2 million dollars and took 5 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.4 from around 11,000 votes, on TMDB 7.3 from 238 votes. A critics' rating of 7.5 from 18 reviews sits close to those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- At the time of filming, Charlotte Rampling was only 23 years old, but she played a heroine whose daughter was already 11 years old.
- The man depicted in the black and white photograph as a hero of World War I is, in reality, Hermann Göring (1893-1946).
- The film begins on the night of the Reichstag fire (February 27, 1933); however, when the police inspector dictates a report to his secretary (later that night or early the next morning), he states the date as February 18, 1933.
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