Les tigres du désert

This is how John Sturges really wanted his classic film - with nudity, whippings, and castrations! American Major Lexman (Richard Harrison) finds himself amongst Brits in a Nazi prison camp in Northern Africa run by Kommandant von Stolzen (Gordon Mitchell). Taking sadistic Dr. Lessing (Lea Lander) hostage, the Allies make their escape into the desert with the Germans in hot pursuit. As always, Harrison and Gordon do their jobs well and are fortunate in that they are the only cast members who don't get whipped. Yup, there is a lot of whipping going on in this one. Italian director Luigi Batzella (operating under the pseudonym Ivan Kathansky) packs the film with enough fighting and sleaze to at least keep viewers awake for its scant 80 minute running time. Batzella would return to this sub-genre the same year with SS HELL CAMP and, since Harrison isn't involved, I'm not going there.

Luigi Batzella, best known under his Eurociné pseudonym Yvan Kathansky, has directed a fine piece of nazi camp sexploitation that mixes not so well with a military drama. The fights are badly choregraphed, the actors are a shame and the storyline seems a bit improvised.

Technically this ain't a reference; at times, the image is so dark you can barely see what's happening. Richard Harrisson, the cheapest mustached hero ever, teams up once again with Gordon Mitchell (they worked together for another of Batzella's fine moments, BLACK GOLD) and with newcomer Lea Landers (the terrified girl we appreciated in Mario Bava's RABID DOGS) as an attempt to create thorn characters that will grip our hearts. They fail miserably and we are stuck with a sometimes funny but overall strange movie. Just give an ear to the music playing in the background during the orgy scenes and you'll get my feeling.

This movie is great for Batzella fans like me, but if you're not familiar with this psycho-trashic director, stay away.

This film is one hour of boring war action with about 20 minutes of tasteless sleaze stuck in the middle. And even the sleaze is pretty tame compared to director Batzella's later foray into shocking sadism, SS HELL CAMP. You get whippings, castration and a Nazi gets a cup of urine splashed in his face. The rest of the movie is total fast-forward material. Along with most of the offerings from France's Eurocine (HELLTRAIN, FRAULEIN DEVIL), this is one of the worst films in the disreputable genre of Nazi concentration camp exploitation films.

How does one sum up this film? Perhaps as "Tobruk" meeting "Caged Women"- and failing. It is neither a proper war flick nor a real WIP effort. The war scenes are pointless and excruciating. The WIP element is interesting sexploitation, with whipping, castration and some interesting and gratuitous nudity. However it is really a cinematic dog's dinner- your life will not suffer if you miss this one.

To everyone that like a good action movie, some pretty women and are interested in knowing this amazing world of exploitation, this is the movie: it's not as brutal as "Ilsa" or "Caligula reincarnated as Hitler", but is fast and painless, and you can watch without fear.

I'm sick of people in bad move saying that this movie is crap, that it's awful and stuff. OK, it's not a masterpiece, but is fun, well done and have lots of action. This people that want every movie to be a masterpiece should shut up and let movies like this movie be watched for people that only want 80 minutes of fun.

I recommend it!