Scandalous stripes
A kitten for Hitler: the worst Christmas film ever
Hitler is still very impressed by the gift.
© Sceenshot Youtube
Ken Russell wanted to make a movie that audiences would lynch him for. The result is an absurd Christmas sketch with Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun.
Ken Russel is known to film buffs for example through “The Devils” as a provocative scandal filmmaker of the 1970s. His most obnoxious flick did not appear until 2007. The eight-minute sketch is called “A Kitten for Hitler”. It owes its creation to a heated discussion and typically British wagering. On a TV show, Russell and Melvyn Bragg, host of the South Bank Show, discussed the issue of censorship. Surprisingly, Russell, who had to contend with censorship all his life, was not averse to the idea. Bragg provoked him with the question of whether he could make Russel a film that was so bad that it would have to be banned in any case. Russell accepted the challenge and won on the first try. When the script was first drafted, the broadcaster got cold feet and withdrew its consent. All production managers waved their hand in horror. Bragg said appreciatively, “Ken, if you ever make this movie and it is shown you will be lynched.”
Slapstick version
Now Russell had caught fire, the film was shot with a small budget from his own resources, friends and family members. Since apparently no family wanted to make their child available for the project, the main character – a Jewish boy named Lenny – was quickly cast with the short actor Rusty Goffe.
The crude sketch doesn’t come close to a masterpiece like “The Devils”.
© Courtesy Everett Collection // Picture Alliance
Why is? In the winter of 1941 a Jewish mother and her son Lenny saw Hitler on a newsreel. The boy wants to know whether Santa Claus will bring Hitler a present. Because of the terrible deeds of the Führer, the mother naturally hopes that the bad man will not get a surprise.
This worries Lenny, who is now traveling to Germany to give Hitler a mechanical kitten. So the boy wants to restore world peace.
Hitler is initially happy about the kitten, but then Eva Braun notices the Jewish star on Lenny’s neck. Eva rushes into the kitchen to get a knife – after all, Lenny ends up as a lampshade in Hitler’s bedroom.
So far so gruesome. In fact, the film is not as repulsive as expected, but above all absurd, and nowhere near as disturbing as the sex scenes of the obsessed nuns in “The Devils”.