HITLER: THE LAST TEN DAYS

d. Ennio De Concini (1973)

Most of the films I write about here are modest in their expectation: they want to find an audience and make some money. They feature writers, directors and actors who are either at the beginning or the end of their careers, or stranded on a plateau of mediocrity on which they will stay. That's not to say that these films aren't sincere or don't contain artistry, even brilliance, as they often do, but that's a bonus: there is no expectation or pretension towards it.

Hitler: The Last Ten Days is an exploitation film. True, it's not one of the cycle of wretched Nazi sex films later classified as 'video nasties' (they were always nasty, regardless of format), but it's pure trash from start to finish, regardless of the fact that it has expectations, pretensions, even: a decent director, a good cast, a world famous star and the endorsement of historian Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper (it's now forgotten that, for several months after Hitler's death, no-one on the Allied side knew for sure what had happened to him. It was Trevor-Roper who put the pieces together). What we're presented with is a stilted, stifling drama, interspersed with alternately insensitive or ham-fisted use of archive footage. There are extraordinary moments: Eva Braun singing a song in blackface; the summary execution of a drunken Julian Glover; Hitler eating slice after slice of cake, but these are extraordinary because they are drawn from life, and were suffused with the unbearable tension and unreality of the Nazi Götterdämmerung. What we mainly have is British character actors (and a few Italians) talking, talking, talking, but no-one daring to speak, or smoke, or escape, or surrender, or kill Hitler, just fucking kill him, or even to reflect on what a colossal toll their madness has taken on the world (at the end, Eva Braun becomes disillusioned, and even admonishes her new husband, but there is no basis to believe this actually happened).    

The biggest problem with the film is Hitler himself, played here by Alec Guinness. Guinness was a fine and cerebral actor but the absolute antithesis of Das Fuhrer, an extremely unsubtle person. This Hitler looks like Stan Laurel with a stick on moustache and only really convinces when he becomes jovial, talking about nude opera, architecture and the greatest hits of his bloody rampage across Europe and Africa. When he loses his temper (which is often), the performance becomes hollow and unconvincing, with Guinness lacking the inner energy and even the strength of voice to convey his lunatic rantings. His gestures here are drawn from Hitler's speeches, and so are melodramatic and play to the back of the house. At one point, he is so angry he stamps his foot, a ludicrous gesture which, although almost certainly accurate, seems so silly that the director should have asked him gently but firmly not to do it.      

Hitler seems to be one of those roles, along with Napoleon, Jesus, Sherlock Holmes and Batman, that every halfway decent actor should have a go at. Sometimes it works and, well, sometimes you feel like shooting yourself in the head while simultaneously chomping down on a cyanide capsule, that's just the way the Pfefferkuchen crumbles.

THE FIEND OF DOPE ISLAND

d. Nate Watt (1961)

The Fiend of Dope Island is about a love triangle between a marijuana farmer and gun runner called Charlie, a heavily accented showgirl called Glory La Verne and an undercover narcotics agent (I didn't catch his name). It is not, as far as I know, based on a true story. 

The semi-psychopathic and possibly brain damaged Charlie (he has two prominent scars on his head) is played by Bruce Bennett. Bennett used to be an Olympian called Herman Brix, and was lined up to play in the first MGM Tarzan film until he broke his shoulder and Johnny Weissmuller took his place. Brix soon returned reborn as Bennett and played Tarzan in a cheap serial overseen by Edgar Rice Burroughs himself. His Tarzan was a gentleman: educated and articulate, but he was no match for Weissmuller and soon went back to character roles. Bennett’s performance here is pretty wild, but not particularly good, which is great, especially if you like ham. 

The film is relieved from being tedious by little studs of excitement like fist fights, shark attacks, bongo music, some surprising nudity and lots of corporal punishment. A well-oiled bull whip is the weapon of choice, if you don't count 'The Yugoslavian Bombshell' Tania Velia, who cha cha cha's into the midst of the male dominated island like a sex grenade with the pin out.  

The credits claim that this delightful trash flavoured trifle introduces Tania, but she’d already been in Hollywood for a few years at this point. Soon after this film was released she went home to Belgrade. Draw your own conclusions. 

SHE DEMONS

d. Richard E. Cuhna (1958)

She Demons is a pulp magazine brought to life, you know, the sort with a cover that has a statuesque blonde in her scanties being tortured by a Nazi with a lascivious expression on his face.  Chuck in a hurricane, some horribly scarred women, a live volcano, some mild bondage, lots of flagellation and a bongo number and you have any number of reasons to enjoy this fun little feature that was clearly made on a shoestring and in someone’s back garden but, nevertheless, is stupidly entertaining.

Irish McKenna plays the statuesque blond, a spoiled little rich kid who finds herself stranded on an uncharted desert island after her Daddy’s yacht sinks in a hurricane (she admonishes her rescuer for not salvaging the essentials: ‘you might at least have picked me up a pair of toreador pants’). The island, as you might expect, is populated by a savage she cult of mutated women and a gang of nasty Nazis, led by a scientist who is trying to restore his wife’s lost beauty (some lava fell on her face) by experimenting on the natives. It’s a bad scene, especially when the head German takes a shine to Irish and decides that SHE will be his Queen from now on.

Totally preposterous, extremely enjoyable, She Demons is some sort of classic, and comes highly recommended for anyone with an interest in sensation, shock science and interpretive dance which has got to be everybody, surely? 

CHAMPIONS OF JUSTICE

d. Federico Curiel (1971)

I never thought I'd ever think there were too many wrestlers in a film, but this mayhem filled Mexican melange presents us with seemingly dozens of Luchadors, all masked, and pretty much interchangeable. Blue Demon (the star of 20 such films and, after Santos, the biggest name in Mexican wrestling at the time) is easy to identify, as is the Killer Doctor (he wears whites), but the rest are all much of a muchness: swarthy, beefy, semi-naked masked men sucking in their tummies and hitting people with their thick forearms. I was most drawn to the Man of a 1,000 Masks, who had great but sadly unfulfilled potential, but, as you might expect, he kept changing masks all the time, so that was confusing, too. Luckily, the story is as easy as paella, and just as tasty.

A super villain / evil scientist (I didn’t even catch his name, doesn’t matter) has iimbued a bunch of wrestling midgets with super strength, and is using them to try and take over the world. Nobody stands in his way, except twenty motor bike riding, big fisted full size wrestlers, of course, and they are more than up for a scrap – they’re champions of justice, after all.

In terms of sheer silliness it's hard to top, but they certainly do string things out - as an example, we see the alchemic process that turns 'just pathetic midgets' (their words, not mine) into human dynamos in great detail - not once, not twice, but thrice. It's just padding, which is disappointing given the amount of characters they have to play with. 

The finale, however, makes up for the sometimes languid pace by being a glorious and fast moving free for all which is excruciatingly entertaining, although you can’t help but cringe every time a little person gets booted in the air or thrown through a window.  There's also something wonderful about the expository scenes: a load of men standing around in their underpants talking very seriously about tactics. When you chuck in incidental details like the Luchadors all having sexy young 'god daughters' who are competing against each other in a beauty contest, it all becomes a little delirious.