I 7 di Marsa Matruh

Another Spaghetti warfilm with the same cast of olicve skinned immaculately coifed Italians as so many other.s Storyline is the usual 'lost behind German lines' and facing many dangers before eventually reaching safety. The actors have no idea of how to portray typical British and the girls ditto though their miniskirts look good. Interesting location shows perfect examople of topography left by The Flood 4,350 years ago.

If you like Italian war movies of the 60s, you'll enjoy this one. British soldiers are stranded behind enemy lines during a heated desert battle in WW II. They hook up with some beautiful (decidedly un-British looking) nurses and try to fight their way back to safety. There's enough desert grit, gunfire, and exploding tanks to keep action fans happy.

If you subscribe to the old adage of 'if you have seen one low-budget, bullet-blasted Italian WW2 actioner you've seen 'em all, then it seems entirely logical to say that if you liked one, you'll probably dig em all! Director Mario Siciliano's not uninteresting desert-set shoot 'em up is given additional lustre by the charismatic presence of dashing euro-cult icon Ivan Rassimov as the stern, hard-line stiff upper lipped Lieutenant Alan Crossland. Precariously cut-off from their own unit, consistently threatened by advancing hordes of Rommel's relentless Afrika Korps, this rag-tag outfit take increasingly daring risks just to survive! After a desperate skirmish or three, this wearisome, perpetually thirsting patrol pick up three stranded, delicious-looking nurses, which adds a welcome reprieve from the sweaty macho tableau of desperate, fearfully fighting men!

While Siciliano's shrapnel-shredded 'Overrun' doesn't offer a ceaseless barrage of maniacal, macaroni-flavoured militaristic mayhem, it certainly delivers on the acting performances, which are uniformly strong, with the delectable starlet Monica Strebel being especially pleasant to behold! The stridently dubbed voices are soothingly familiar, and the noisome final act builds up to a rousingly ordinance overloaded climax, wherein our dangerously outgunned and oppressively out-Tanked heroes stoically battle against hellacious hordes of Hitler's Hellhounds! There's a far from displeasing Spaghetti western vibe throughout, due in no small part to the hazy expanses of heat-blanched desert vistas and music maestro Cipriani's dynamic knack for writing uniquely exhilarating themes! And once again, the mesmerically masculine Ivan Rassimov's angular, intense visage lights up the screen like a prism!

One of the many Italian WW2 films set in North Africa from the 1960's & 70s. If you have seen any one of these films Overrun will seem very familiar. Having said that Overrun is probably the best of the bunch - out of the ones I have seen at any rate. The story is pretty similar to the 1958 classic 'Ice Cold in Alex' - so if you liked that then you'll probably enjoy this. The people and events the group encounter on their desert journey back to Allied lines are generally interesting, varied and entertaining. This is what really sets this film apart and stops from being boring. Although having said that the film is definitely overly long in places (cutting about 20 minutes from this film would have improved it). The action is a mixed-bag of good and bad, but never strays into strays into the territory of being laughable. The English dub of the film has better clarity than most, however is marred by some annoying over the top fake accents. Some equipment and almost all vehicles in this film are historically incorrect, with most of the vehicles cleary being of 1950s French and Soviet origin. Judging from the variety of vehicles, and the location, I would guess that they were loaned for the film production from the Egyptian military. However this only detracts from the film if you are a military history buff. Not a brilliant film, but still alot better than most of its contemporary competition.

Overrun is another Macaroni Combat movie from the genre's heyday. This is one of a sizeable grouping of these flicks that were set in the North African desert. In this one we have a group of British soldiers finding themselves stranded in enemy territory after a German victory in a key battle during WWII. We spend the rest of the film watching them flee the enemy, overcome obstacles and encounter various unexpected groups of people. Of the latter, there is a group of good-looking nurses and a tribe of sword wielding Bedouins. The girls are basically wedged into the narrative in order to give this male-oriented movie some eye-candy and I for one can't see any fault in this objective. The Bedouins are there to provide some exotic colour and, along, with the ladies do lend events some distinctive elements. Like most other Italian war movies from this period, this isn't truthfully a particularly good film quite honestly. But it's less expected aspects are fun, while it's cast of characters all sport various, impressively unconvincing British regional accents which I thought was kind of funny. It also admittedly does feature one genuinely good suspenseful scene, where our heroes find themselves on top of a landmine; this was dealt with in a unique and effective manner I have to say. All in all, this one is not bad for this kind of thing.