I giardini del diavolo

HEROES WITHOUT GLORY is a late-stage Italian WW2 film, made at a time when all the good movies had already come out and film-makers were left feeding out the remaining dregs to jaded audiences. This one is a low budget affair, made with a no-name cast and directed by Alfredo Rizzo, who also made THE BLOODSUCKER LEADS THE DANCE, although he found greater fame as an actor earlier in his career.

This desert-set movie sees a British patrol working their way through a hostile landscape, fighting off attacks by German units at regular intervals. They come across a group of prisoners who have in their possession a treasure map that tells of an ancient tomb; before long the whole group is in search of an ancient treasure.

The plot makes it sound more interesting than it really is, because this is sloppy stuff indeed. The humour is broad and the characters broader, painted in simple strokes so that you don't have much interest in them. The on-location desert scenery is nice but the action is rather routine and there are few instances of incident or set-pieces that really stand out. Star Jeff Cameron made a career out of appearing in quirky Italian B-movie fare but this is one of his least interesting efforts.

The identical grunting sound made by everyone who got shot or blown up got very wearing very quickly. Ammunition seemed to be limitless and the explosions were all very fiery. Bad acting all round and obviously the whole thing was done on a very low budget and it showed. It is so bad that it's actually worth watching just to see how bad filming making can be.