Ilsa, gardienne du harem

Rated highly by fans of the grubby 'Ilsa' series but for me it's way the weakest of the four movies. Also as Ilsa (herself), has been transported into different countries, even continents, the character or persona seems to be out of sorts with the subject matter. Still Dyanne Thorne (cult actress No 1), is always larger than life and this Italian style exploiter (extremely nasty in parts), is actually a Canadian, US co production. See it if you must.

HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHEIKS, is a relatively decent follow-up to the classic SHE WOLF OF THE SS. This one has the mammoth breasted sadist running a slavery ring for some Sheik. Ilsa trains the girls to be good little sluts, and the expected sleaze begins...Not as powerful as the aforementioned SHE WOLF, HAREM KEEPER has a "lighter" tone and was obviously an attempt to cash-in on the probably unexpected success of SHE WOLF. It also seems the tone was intentionally lightened, probably to draw a larger audience. Not my favorite of the series, I prefer SHE WOLF and the under-rated TIGRESS OF SIBERIA, but this one is still decent. Still a classic exploit film and worth a look - 7/10

As everyone no doubt knows, this is the follow up to the notorious movie Ilsa She-Wolf of the SS. That flick was a real controversial one, seeing as it was mixing a Nazi concentration camp premise with an extremely exploitative story-line. Despite all of this, it was essentially a very exaggerated movie and really quite hard to take very seriously. In Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks Dyanne Thorne returns as the super-bitch Ilsa. In this one she runs a harem for a sleazy sheik. Or more specifically, she is tasked with turning captured women into his sexual slaves. Of course, this involves much elaborate torture and copious amounts of nudity.

If anything, this one is more 'upmarket' than the first film. It has a bigger budget and some decent locations. It's also less controversial subject-wise, although it's still clearly an exploitation movie. The film revolves around sleaze and torture. We have charming things like flesh-eating ants and exploding vaginas after all. So, fear not, this one is still in the same general ball-park as the first. Unfortunately, the sexy Miss Thorne just doesn't get naked enough though, which is somewhat unfortunate and to this movie's detriment. However, we do have a couple of topless female kung-fu experts called Satin and Velvet who rip a poor fool's balls off. And two of the captured slave-girls are played by Russ Meyer regulars Uschi Digard (Supervixens) and Haji (Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!). Both of whom are always a welcome presence in any movie.

Despite all of the atrocities, the Ilsa series is basically cartoonish. You cannot take these movies seriously, nor were you intended to. This one, like the others is another combination of gory violence, sleazy erotica and deranged silliness. For my money this one is neither as good as the original, nor Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia. But it's still an entertaining trash-fest.

Dyanne Thorne returns as buxom bitch Ilsa, in 'Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks—the second in the infamous exploitation series that began with the sleazy and repugnant She Wolf of the SS. Where the first film made viewers feel decidedly uneasy due to the controversial 'Nazi concentration camp' setting, Harem Keeper manages a lighter tone due to its comic book premise and tongue-in-cheek execution, yet it still contains enough violence and nudity to keep fans of the first film happy.

This time round the busty blonde sadist is to be found running a harem for evil oil sheik El Sharif, ably assisted by her two topless ball-breakers, Satin and Velvet. The buxom bitch has resorted to kidnapping beautiful women to ensure a steady supply of hot babes for the sheik; it seems that he has a nasty habit of getting carried away during sex and 'damaging' his ladies. Ilsa must train the newest additions to his harem, teaching them how to be subservient and willing to please; any resistance is punished with torture.

Meanwhile, two guests have arrived at the sheiks home; Commander Adam Scott and his associate Kaiser are hoping to convince El Sharif to give up some of his oil which lies untapped beneath the desert. As a last resort, they intend to use incriminating recordings of the sheik, secretly gathered by their undercover spy, to blackmail him into cooperating. Little do they know that the sheik has already rumbled their plan and isn't going to make life easy for them.

Ilsa, however, takes a shine to hunky Commander Adam and indulges in much rumpy-pumpy with him; when the sheik orders her to have Adam killed, she disobeys and leads a revolt against the despicable tyrant.

There is a real sense of fun to this installment of the Ilsa franchise; director Don Edmonds injects huge doses of camp into the proceedings making this film less of a 'guilty' pleasure than the first. Of course, a strong stomach and hardened sensibilities are still beneficial for those who choose to watch—there is still plenty of cheesy gore and inventive torture in evidence to qualify the film as a genuine shocker: a man has his testicles pulled off by Satin and Velvet, a thief has his hand cut off, two women have explosive vaginal implants inserted into them (which are triggered during sex), flesh eating ants eat a woman's foot, and an enemy of the sheik is doused in oil and set on fire.

It may be a different style of movie to the first one, but Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheils is a more than worthy sequel and well worth checking out.

I would definitely recommend this movie to any fans of 70's 'B' movie sleaze. Director Don Edmonds manages to pack copious amounts depravity, sex & violence into this flick, with Dyanne Thorne camping it up as the evil Ilsa. Actually, she isn't as evil as she was in the other Ilsa films. but she still manages to hand out several doses of deranged torture on her unfortunate prisoners. The film also features perhaps one of the most brutal film fights ever, when a disobedient male guard is forced to fight Ilsa's thong wearing female personal bodyguards !. I really enjoyed watching this trash - YES it is TRASH, but it KNOWS it's trash & didn't cost millions like Charlies Angels!. Now everyone has come across DVD commentary tracks which are along the lines of 'Yeah I remember that, yeah that was fun etc', but this one actually makes the film even more enjoyable. Thorne & Edmonds give a highly entertaining account of the movie, explaining why many of the performances were so wooden and how low the budget for the movie was. It makes one realise that many of our 'respected' actors would look just as bad as the cast of this movie if they were only allowed one take because the film makers only had a limited amount of film stock!. Not for the squeamish or lovers of 'quality' cinema, but great fun for sleaze addicts!.