Have you ever noticed that some international film titles just don’t translate easily into English? Take, for example, the German B-movie crime thriller Das Rasthaus der grausamen Puppen (1967), directed by Austrian triple threat Rolf Olsen, a prolific actor, screenwriter and director. The film was released in some markets as The Devil’s Girls but it was also known as Inn of the Gruesome Dolls, The Roadhouse of the Violent Girls, and, my favorite, Rest Home of the Cruel Puppet. The latter WTF title gives no clear indication of what the hell it’s about so let me lay it out for you. Think of it as a German variation on Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) crossed with a women-in-prison flick like House of Women (1962). Add in some exploitation elements like catfights, an attempted lesbian seduction, and gratuitous violence and top it all off with some lame comic relief not unlike the inclusion of moronic characters similar to comedian Eddi Arent in the Edgar Wallace krimi thrillers of the 1960s (Arent usually played meddlesome servants, bumbling detectives or eccentric upper-class twits in those films). It all adds up to wildly uneven but consistently entertaining grindhouse trash where scenes can sometimes be mean-spirited and goofy at the same time.

Never mind that almost everything that happens in The Devil’s Girls is completely implausible with little attempt to create believable characters out of stick figure stereotypes. Director Olsen keeps everything moving along at a such a fast clip that you rarely have time to focus on the abrupt transitions in tone and continuity. There is also a wealth of humor (both intentional and unintentional) provided by the awkward English subtitles and the Americanized names of some of the key players such as a Scottish policeman named Gary Cooper (Stefan Savo), a village busybody known as Mrs. Twaddle (Jane Tilden) and a prison matron called Francis Nipple (Ellen Schwiers), who dresses like a S&M dominatrix, complete with whip.

Speaking of Scotland, which is the setting for The Devil’s Girls, the film is actually a West German/Italian production, most of which was shot on location in the vicinity of Trieste, Italy. Although real places in Scotland are mentioned throughout the movie like Glasgow, where the story begins, Balmoral and the Highlands, most of the narrative unfolds in the fictitious village of Sheephelm.

The nuttiness starts with a botched jewelry store robbery in which Bob Fishman (Erik Schumann) kills a policeman who tries to apprehend him. Crushing the cop with his car, Bob runs off, leaving his injured accomplice and girlfriend Betty Williams (Essy Persson) to take the rap. Over black and white still photographs of Betty being arrested and processed at a Glasgow prison for women, a raucous rock ‘n’ roll theme song entitled “Dirty Angels” reflects the rebellious, anti-social attitudes of the main protagonists (The film score is by prolific German composer Erwin Halletz, who specialized in genre efforts like Liane, Jungle Goddess [1956] and Treasure of the Incas [1965]).

Betty, who quickly becomes a bitter, hardened convict, blackmails Judith, a friend on the outside, into giving her the details of Bob’s whereabouts. With the help of four fellow inmates, Esther (Gabriella Giorgelli), Sylvia (Dominique Boschero), Jane (Karin Field), and the frightened, reluctant Linda (Helga Anders), the group overpower some guards, get their keys and guns and escape to a department store, where they dress up in some stylish new outfits. “Hurry up,” hisses Betty at her cohorts, “This is not a fashion show.” But the director doesn’t seem to agree as he films the women preening and posing for each other in a provocative manner.

Soon the young hellions are on the run again and headed toward the Highlands where Bob works as a bartender in an inn. Along the way they kidnap Oscar (Joachim Teege), an undertaker, steal his vehicle to slip past police roadblocks and eventually murder their abductee, hiding his body in the woods.

When they finally arrive at the Sheephelm Inn, where Bob works under the pseudonym of Hill, the women hide in the nearby barn while Betty confronts her former lover. The couple is quickly reconciled after jumping into the sack together but Betty becomes insanely jealous of the equally lethal Jane, who is clearly interested in Bob. We know this is not a situation that is going to end well but there are other complications in store for our ex-cons.

Lupus McIntosh (Balduin Baas), an annoying traveling salesman who frequents the inn, is too curious for his own good and so is the innkeeper Mr. Ellis. Another threat to the gang’s freedom is the rural cop, who develops a crush on Linda, not realizing her true identity.

None of this stops Betty and Bob from embarking on a crazy scheme to extort money from Mrs. Oland (Margot Trooger), a wealthy former employer, with the goal of fleeing Scotland. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to realize that their scheme to hold Mrs. Oland as a hostage ties in perfectly with Mr. Oland’s plot to get rid of his wife and run off with Doris (Angelica Ott), his mistress and house servant. It all goes horribly wrong of course but not before a married couple and their seriously ill daughter Emily become unwitting hostages after stopping at the inn.

It is hard to pick out a favorite moment in this delirious nonsense but I’m fond of the absurd scene where Mrs. Twaddle, already hysterical after discovering Oscar’s corpse in the forest, arrives at the inn for help and becomes even more manic after encountering the girl gang. Running upstairs in a panic, she backs away from Bob trying to calm her down and promptly tumbles out the window to her death. Later we see her beloved dog Hercules running through the countryside with her cap in his mouth.

There are also plenty of howlers in the English subtitled dialogue such as one of the convict girls surveying the stocked bar at the inn and exclaiming, “I will get wasted like a group of Cossacks” or Betty complaining about Jane: “I hate her guts but at least she has balls!”

The campy melodramatics sometimes work at cross purposes with Rolf’s occasional attempts to inject some philosophical ponderings or human tragedy into the mix such as Betty’s confession to Bob about her lack of morality or the revelation that Mrs. Oland’s eccentric nature is due to grief over the death of her young son. But anything of a serious nature or resembling reality is never an issue in The Devil’s Girls. By the end of it, most of the hateful, obnoxious or comically inept characters are either dead, wounded or arrested, which makes for the perfect happy ending in the exploitation film universe.

The Devil’s Girls is relatively unknown in the U.S. and would make an ideal future Blu-ray release from an outfit like Vinegar Syndrome. Cult film enthusiasts will want to see the movie for its swinging sixties vibe but also the presence of Essy Persson, the sexy Swedish star who achieved international fame in only her second film role, Mac Ahlberg’s erotic drama I, a Woman (1965). She made an even bigger splash in Radley Metzger’s Therese and Isabelle (1968), a melancholy, softcore erotic drama about a lesbian love affair. Persson also had memorable roles in the Italian sci-fi adventure Mission Stardust (1967), playing an alien in a platinum blonde wig, and the period thriller Cry of the Banshee (1970), featuring Vincent Price as a witchhunter, similar to his role in The Conqueror Worm (1968).

In The Devil’s Girls, Persson isn’t required to bring any complexity to her role and is depicted as little more than a volatile and reckless sociopath. Under the circumstances, her tough-as-nails demeanor is more than adequate and she is rarely boring as the movie’s chief protagonist and tormentor.

The director, Rolf Olsen, started out as an actor in German musicals, romantic comedies and dramas before trying his hand at screenplays and moving into edgier fare. He dabbled in various genres over his career, including a brief stint helming spaghetti western imitations like The Last Ride to Santa Cruz and Legend of the Gunfighter (both 1964), numerous gritty crime thrillers such as Das Stundenhotel von St. Pauli (1970) starring his favorite go-to actor Curd Jurgens, and Mondo Cane-like ripoffs (1974’s Shocking Asia and Journey into the Beyond [1975], narrated by John Carradine).

Considering the time when it was made and some of Olsen’s more lurid features from the early seventies, The Devil’s Girls is surprisingly tame in terms of explicit nudity or sex scenes. Even the violence is relatively discreet (two of the murders even occur off camera) but Olsen’s talent for conjuring up a convincingly sleazy ambiance is at its peak here. Shock cuts like a close-up of a severed pig’s head being split in two with an axe are typical of the film’s refusal to play nice with the viewer.

Other links of interest:

https://encyclopedia.homes/wiki/Rolf_Olsen

I, a Woman (1965)

https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/INTRODUCTION