MACARONI COMBAT: Hell Commandos (1969)

 

               “Hell Commandos” is an Italian/Spanish movie set in WWII Europe.  It stars the famous cowboy movie star Guy Madison.  The movie opens with footage of end of the war celebrations.  What the hell?  Spoiler alert, please!  Apparently, the celebrations are proof that the movie mission successfully won the war.  As I was able to deduce, a coerced scientist is developing something nefarious and must be stopped.  The mission is given to a squad of misfit Marines who are the Dirty Dozen if they had been in the Italian army.  We are introduced to them as they frolic with some local girls.  Italian war films always find a way to get hot chicks in.  These guys have as much fun fighting themselves as f’ing the frauleins.  This makes them perfect for a cinematic suicide mission to save civilization.  They are paradropped behind the lines and sneak up on sleeping SS men.  They slay them in a variety of ways, including using a wrench!  Well, that was different.  They encounter a special agent named Maj. Carter (Madison) who “enlists” them to go after the professor making the superweapon.  They don SS uniforms (which of course fit perfectly) and fortunately they all speak German except their minority member – a Native American named Cheyenne.  On the way, they meet up with the professor’s daughter so Carter can have a lust interest and we can see a girl kill Nazis.  Oh, and there is an evil Nazi.

               “Hell Commandos” is as bad as you would expect.  Much of it makes no sense.  Starting with: what are Marines doing in Europe?  Sloppy research, dudes.  The plot is matched by the terrible acting and dialogue.   The intentional humor is stupid slapstick.  The unintentional is not enough to make the movie camp.  The first guffaw comes around the twelve- minute mark when we get a binocular-eye view of footage from a much better movie.  Some of the deaths are hilarious and stick around for the ending which is side-splitting.  Consider it a reward for sitting through the whole thing. After all, if you don't laugh, what is the purpose for Macaroni Combat movies?

 

GRADE  =  F-

MACARONI COMBAT: Last Platoon (1988)

 

Macaroni combat is a war movie subgenre similar to spaghetti westerns. It is also called Euro War, Macaroni War, Spaghetti War, or Spaghetti Combat. They were made in the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the movies were low budget, B-movies made in Italy. Some were made in the Philippines. The actors are sometimes referred to as “Italian yankees”. They are characterized by extra violence and minimalist cinematography. Lots of stuff gets blown up.  Often they used archival footage, but they also made use of actual vehicles, although mostly they were not appropriate for the time period. Most are set in WWII and most of those involve commandos since the subgenre was inspired by movies like “The Dirty Dozen”. They had similar “who will survive?” plots. In most of the movies, a group of soldiers goes behind enemy lines. Usually, the men were a motley crew and there was dysfunction. Later, Vietnam became a popular setting. Most of the movies have a has-been American actor cashing in on their name like Lee Van Cleef and Guy Madison. Klaus Kinski is another actor known for his macaroni combat roles. With this post I am beginning a series on macaroni combat movies. You will see I am not impressed with the quality of the films.

               “Last Platoon” is an Italian war movie set in the Vietnam War.  It starts with a special effects shot through binoculars that reveals the fakest looking model truck you will ever see.  A squad led by Capt. Costas (Richard Hatch) attacks a Viet Cong camp to rescue a captive.  A sniper takes out a man in a guard tower and he takes a dive, naturally.  Not one, but two, bad guys are killed by thrown knives.  A squad member leaps through the roof of a thatched hut (at least that is different).  The awakened enemy are slaughtered with no bloodshed.  An enemy fakes surrender and blows up a naïve American.  “Bastards!” This will not be a revisionist Vietnam War movie.

               Costa returns to his Vietnamese girlfriend Mai-Ling, but the next morning she is gone, leaving a cryptic note.  Could he have been sleeping with the enemy?  When he returns to base, he is given another mission tailored to his rogue warrior talents.  Costa is our dime store Willard.  He has a mentor in Col. Abrams (Donald Pleasence) who looks the other way at his insubordination.  He wants Costa to take out a bridge that will shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and thus win the war.  He is given a “squad with balls”, the core of which is three “thieves and killers” straight from the stockade.  (This movie could not afford a dozen.)  They chopper in to a village in a scene that will only remind you of “Apocalypse Now” because I am telling you.  Let the squad culling begin.  The first goes to punji stakes.  The steadily dwindling unit is destined for more knife throwing, grenade pin pulling with teeth, and ridiculous explosions.  And Costa is headed for a reunion with Mai, of course.

               “Last Platoon” is not as terrible as you might think.  The dialogue is not laughable, although it would have been more entertaining if it was.  It does have the impressive acting talents of Hatch and Pleasence and they do not embarrass themselves.  The rest of the cast consists of the men who picked up their bags at the airport.  Surprisingly, it actually looks like a jungle setting.  That puts it ahead of many Vietnam War movies.  In fact, it is not the worst of the subgenre.  It is totally unrealistic, but what do you expect.  What you do expect is plenty of gratuitous and graphic violence.  It does not really deliver the guilty pleasures.  There are plenty of explosions and those four knife-thrown killings, but it falls short of campy combat porn.  I think they actually were trying to make a point about the futileness of war and how soldiers are like pawns.  Heavy stuff for a movie like this.

 

GRADE  =  D

Nation’s Pride (Stolz der Nation) (1944)

 

In honor of Daniel Bruhl's birthday, here is my review of the short propaganda film that develops his character in Tarantino's film.

               “Nation’s Pride” is the movie within the movie “Inglourious Basterds”.  It is meant to be a German propaganda film in the style of those put out by Joseph Goebbels.  It is only six minutes, 11 seconds, but implies that it is part of a longer feature.  It was directed not by Tarantino, but by actor/director Eli Roth.  Roth plays “The Bear Jew” in the feature.  Tarantino got Bo Svenson to play a role in the short in an homage to “The Inglorious Bastards”.  Speaking of homages, only to a much better movie, Roth includes an American soldier screaming after being shot in the eye and a baby carriage.  Both are references to the famous Odessa steps scene in “Battleship Potemkin”.

               The short starts with Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) in the tower in some Italian town.  He is assaulted by a bunch of sniper fodder.  The film is sniper porn, 1940’s Nazi style.  Zoller never misses, of course.  But neither do every other sniper hero in movies.  And the Americans are incompetent.  They run out in the open begging to be shot.  It’s a propaganda film, after all.  However, although it is meant to be a takeoff on German propaganda films, it is not as over the top as you would expect for a propaganda film set within a Tarantino movie.  It has it’s sly humor, like when an American uses a walkie-talkie to communicate:  “Hello, Hitler.  I want to surrender.”  American bullets stitch a swastika in the wall of the tower.  But the funniest part is the theatrical deaths that make the touchdown-signaling deaths of many war movies seem realistic.

               If you are a fan of “Inglourious Basterds”, you need to see this film.  It’s amazing he went to the trouble to make it.  Only Tarantino would have done so.

The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)

 

                Today is Anne Frank Day because she received her diary as a gift for her 13^th birthday on June 12, 1942. Her father, who was the only one of her family to survive their stay in concentration camps, published the diary in 1947 and it instantly became a best-seller. In 1955, a Broadway play based on the diary was a big hit. The playwrights, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, wrote the screenplay. George Stevens (“Gunga Din”) was chosen to direct. He was a good choice partly because during WWII he was a major in the Army Signal Corps. He had enlisted after seeing the infamous Nazi propaganda film “Triumph of the Will”. He and his crew filmed in Normandy after the D-Day invasion. His unit produced the only color footage of the war in Europe. He followed the American army all the way to the Elbe River. He reached Dachau death camp two days after it was liberated. He filmed at other concentration camps and then created the documentary “The Nazi Plan”. It was used at the Nuremberg Trials. He wanted Audrey Hepburn for the lead role because she looked a lot like Anne. She declined because she felt she was old at 30. She also was uncomfortable about bringing back memories from her life in the Netherlands during the war. Stevens auditioned thousands of young women and chose a 17-year-old model named Millie Perkins. Shelley Winters sought the part of Petronella van Daan. She was twenty years younger than Petranella. She gained 30 pounds for the role and lost 25 during the shoot. Stevens was determined to make a realistic and emotional picture. An exact replica of the three story building was constructed in a large sound stage. He kept the temperature on set appropriate for the time of year that was being filmed. This meant the actors were freezing during the winter scenes. The exterior scenes were filmed on location in Amsterdam. Otto Frank and Johannes Kleiman were technical advisers. The movie was a modest hit and was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Costume Design, and Score. It won for Best Supporting Actress (Shelley Winters who donated here Oscar to the Anne Frank Museum where it is still on display), Art Direction, and Cinematography. Winning three Oscars when “Ben Hur” dominated the awards was quite an accomplishment. It helped that they were giving separate awards for black/white and color. It was rated the 18^th greatest inspirational movies for AFIs 100 Years…100 Cheers.

               The movie uses a flashforward introduction as Otto Frank (Joseph Schildkraut reprising his Broadway role) visits the building after the war. Miep (Dodie Heath), the Gentile woman who helped hide the family, presents him with the diary which she and Mr. Kraler (Douglas Spencer) have saved. The film flashes back to July, 1942 when the Franks and the van Daans take up residence in the attic above the spice factory. Otto goes over the rules which include no noise during the daytime hours. I wonder if students will watch the movie today and pass out when they learn Anne would read for ten hours a day. She finished “A Tale of Two Cities” in one day. There is dysfunction between the two families mostly because of eight different personalities living in such a claustrophic and stressful situation. Anne is about the same age as Peter van Daan and they are not exactly Romeo and Juliet, but they gradually develop feelings for each other. Anne is a typical teenage girl as evidenced by her diary. She idolizes her father and tries her mother’s patience. The seven show their humanity by agreeing to take in Miep’s Jewish dentist Alfred Dussel (Ed Wynn). He adds more dysfunction. There are some edge of your seat moments because most viewers don’t know how or when they were caught. This adds suspense to the movie. At one point a burglar breaks into the factory and the cops come. Later, German Gestapo agents search the bottom two floors. There is an excellent scene where they endure a bombing raid. This is the one scene that the play could not recreate.

               Stevens did a great job bringing the diary to film. Screenwriters Goodrich and Hackett won a Pulitzer Prize for their play so Stevens had an excellent script to work from. The screenplay incorporates diary entries which are narrated by Anne. The cinematography deservedly won an Oscar for William Mellor. The camera would move from floor to floor. The lighting shines appropriate for an ill-lit attic. The only technical weakness is the sappy score. The cast is great. They all behave realistically. The movie does not make them heroes. They are typical people thrown into a terrifying situation. You will wonder if you could have survived what they survived. Until that fateful day. The movie answers the question of who ratted them out by choosing the burglar as the villain. It is still unclear if this is correct. Millie Perkins is surprisingly effective in her first acting role. She had no training as Stevens picked  her after seeing her photo and convincing her to audition. She was a better choice than Hepburn, so that worked out well.

               Obviously, the movie is a must-see which means I’m pretty embarrassed that it took me so long to see it. The film is inspiring, but very sad. That is as it should be. It is a great companion to the book and follows the book carefully. There are no Hollywood embellishments. What we do get is some Hollywood expansion of the story. Fans of the book might not have had an idea of the role that Miep and Kraler played in their valiant attempt to save members of a different race/religion. Would you have risked your life like they did? God help us because that question may be in our future.

P.S. I completed my 100 Best War Movies list before I saw this movie. I know, I know. Mea culpa. It does belong in the top 100.

GRADE = A