The celebration features the family's children performing for the Baron, his family and guests on a makeshift stage.

On the night of the Reichstag fire in early 1933, the family's conservative patriarch, Baron Joachim von Essenbeck, who represents the old aristocratic Germany and detests Adolf Hitler, is celebrating his birthday. In 1930s Germany, the Essenbecks are a wealthy and powerful industrialist family who have begun doing business with the newly elected Nazi Party. The film won the Golden Peacock (Best Film) at the 4th International Film Festival of India. Helmut Berger received a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer. Visconti won the Nastro d'Argento for Best Director, and was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar with co-writers Nicola Badalucco and Enrico Medioli. In the United States, the film was given an X rating by the MPAA and was only lowered to a more-marketable R after twelve minutes of offending footage were cut. The film opened to widespread critical acclaim, but also faced controversy from ratings boards for its sexual content, including depictions of homosexuality, pedophilia, rape, and incest.

Principal photography of The Damned took place in locations throughout Italy, West Germany, and Austria. It is loosely based on the Krupp family of steel industrialists from Essen. Set in 1930s Germany, the film centers on the Essenbecks, a wealthy industrialist family who have begun doing business with the Nazi Party, and whose amoral and unstable heir, Martin (played by Berger in his breakthrough role), is embroiled in his family's machinations. The Damned ( Italian: La caduta degli dei, lit.'The Fall of the Gods') is a 1969 historical drama film directed and co-written by Luchino Visconti, and starring Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, Helmut Berger, Helmut Griem, Umberto Orsini, Charlotte Rampling, Florinda Bolkan, Reinhard Kolldehoff and Albrecht Schönhals in his final film.

The damned by la banks