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Italy
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1978
Directed by Enzo G. Castellari
Starring
Bo Svenson
Peter Hooten
Fred Williamson
Color
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99 Minutes
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R
Format: DVD (R1
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3-disc set)
Severin Films
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3-disc
"Explosive Edition"
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Blu-ray
edition (July 2009)
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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7
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10 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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SNEAK
PREVIEW
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DVD
Release Date: July
29, 2008 |
In
the cult movie consciousness, the "Macaroni
Combat" flick has heretofore taken a distant
back seat to virtually every other kind of Italian
genre film —
the spaghetti western, the giallo, gothic
horror, poliziotteschi, Naziploitation,
even pepla. This is mainly because relatively
few of these military/war-themed action-adventure
pics have found their way onto North American
home video. There's also the fact that —
judging
strictly by the admittedly small sample I've had
the chance to watch —
most
of them are rather lame or, at best, mediocre.
(See my review of The
Battle of El Alamein and the Churchill's
Leopards/Salt in the Wound double feature
for prime examples.) This lack of visibility is
bound to change with Quentin Tarantino's recent
announcement about his upcoming auteur project,
an epic remake/reimagining of
1978's The Inglorious Bastards.
As of this review's posting, the screenplay is
finished and the money deals are being made.
Which
brings us 'round to the original movie. With
exquisite timing, the
Euro-Cult specialists at Severin Films are releasing
it on Region 1 DVD just as the buzz about the
QT version starts to build. As a fan of
the director — action maestro Enzo Castellari
(Kill Them All and Come
Back Alone, The
Big Racket) — I was certainly quite eager
to see it.
France,
1944: With the successful Allied landings in Normandy,
Nazi occupation forces are falling back towards
the country's eastern borders. At a U.S. Army
base close to the front lines, a group of convicts
— American soldiers
court-martialed for such crimes as murder, theft,
and desertion — is
loaded aboard a truck for transport to a prison
further to the rear. Shortly after setting out,
the small convoy is strafed and badly shot up
by a Luftwaffe fighter-bomber. Most of the prisoners
are either killed in the air attack or gunned
down by their guards while attempting to flee,
but the five surviving convicts are able to take
advantage of the confusion. They turn the tables
on the MPs, killing some and disarming the rest,
then take off in the still-operable truck. Prospects
for escape seem mighty slim, what with the German
Army in front of them and the Allies behind. Where
can they possibly go?
Assuming de facto leadership
of the men is the single officer among them, disgraced
Air Corps fighter pilot Lt. Yeager (Bo Svenson,
Amok
Train). He decides that their only
option is to make a run for neutral Switzerland
— which will unfortunately mean crossing German-held
territory. Fighting their way through Nazi patrols
almost proves less of a problem than keeping some
of the convicts from each other's throats, namely
Tony (Peter Hooten), a cocky Chicago hood with
racist attitudes, and swaggering, cigar-chomping
tough guy Canfield (Fred "The Hammer"
Williamson), who's black. The group picks up a
sixth member when they encounter German Army deserter
Adolf (Raimund Harmstorf). Sick of the war, he
agrees to guide them through the lines.
After a series of bloody firefights
and close shaves, the men run into real trouble
just as they're nearing their goal. By mistake
they wipe out a squad of American special forces
dressed in German uniforms. The now-dead commandos
were dropped behind enemy lines on a secret mission,
a joint operation with the local resistance group.
The French partisans show up and mistake Yaeger's
motley crew for the commandos, so the escaped
convicts have no choice but to play along if they're
to have any chance at making it to the Swiss border.
Unfortunately for them this will mean participating
in the planned mission, a daring strike on a German
armored train carrying a top secret weapon...
Normally I'm something of a
nit-picker when it comes to the historical veracity
of war movies. Inglorious
Bastards certainly has its share of nits
to pick. There are the anachronistic hairstyles
and 'staches, a problem common to Italian movies
of the '70s and '80s set during WWII. (One of
the film's 'dirty half-dozen' sports a shoulder-length
mane!) Real-world infantry tactics aren't given
much consideration at all — I could only shake
my head while watching an American platoon, soldiers
all bunched together, charge headlong down a road
into German automatic weapons fire to be willingly
annihilated. (Frankly, some of the action set-pieces
play like Sam Peckinpah helming an episode of
The A-Team.) And the whole V2 rocket warhead
business is utter nonsense... Why the hell would
the Nazis shuttle a secret weapons project around
in a "mobile laboratory" so close to
enemy lines? But all this is beside the point.
The movie aims to be nothing more than a fun,
fast-paced action romp that doesn't take itself
too seriously. Mission accomplished.
Castellari
is the ideal type of director for such a film.
Infusing even his crappiest pics with energy and
humor, he usually has an interesting trick or
two up his sleeve despite being hamstrung by paltry
budgets. Fortunately, for Inglorious
Bastards he had a halfway decent sum to
work with, evident in the larger cast and numerous
special effects shots. A major setback in the
middle of production, a daunting, seemingly insurmountable
problem which would've stopped other directors
cold (see below), served only to fire Castellari's
imagination and allow him to apply his considerable
talent for improvisation.
This
flexibility, can-do attitude and enthusiasm for
seat-of-your-pants filmmaking is reflected in
the performance of Fred Williamson, the real star
of the picture although third-billed behind Svenson
and Hooten. Actor and director are clearly on
the same wavelength: Castellari is more than content
to simply let Fred be Fred (the former pro football
player exudes natural screen charisma, never playing
anything but himself in his movies); for his part,
The Hammer tackles the physical demands with relish
— performing virtually all his own stunts, even
the dangerous ones — and contributes small improvisational
touches here and there that enhance the spirit
of testosterone-fueled fun.
Inglorious Bastards is such an enjoyable
"Guy Movie", in fact, that it overcomes
the occasionally sloppy voice looping (particularly
Hooton's) and dreadful miscasting of Scottish
actor Ian Bannen (The Offence,
From Beyond the Grave)
as a supposedly tough American commando officer.
Do the elaborate model effects in the spectacular
climax look real? Well, no, but after almost two
decades now of digitized, computer-generated movie
mayhem they're actually kind of groovy. (Counterintuitively,
the bigger your television set the better these
Old School effects look.)
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Originally scheduled for late May, Severin's release
was delayed some two months for the creation of
additional bonus material. Well worth the wait,
y'all!
First, though, for the movie itself: A terrific-looking
1.85:1 anamorphic transfer, taken from a pristine
print; the mono English-language audio track is
generally first-rate, suffering only two or three
seconds of distortion during loud yelling or music
blasts. All in all it's a top drawer presentation.
The screener EC received is the "Explosive Edition"
three-disc set. (A single-disc version will be
simultaneously issued as well.) Disc 1 contains
the film, the theatrical trailer and an English-language
commentary track by the director and Severin's
David Gregory. The inclusion of a 38-minute featurette
entitled A Conversation with Enzo Castelleri
and Quentin Tarantino was responsible
for the postponement of the DVD. Taped less than
a month before the street date, it's a one-on-one
bull session in which the men swap (obviously
genuine) compliments and have fun chatting about
the 1978 film and upcoming remake. True to form,
motor-mouthed movie geek Tarantino holds court
for the first 25 minutes or so, with a beaming
Castellari barely able to get a word in edgewise.
If you're a fan of either director's work you'll
enjoy it.
On Disc 2 is the feature-length
documentary Train Kept-A-Rollin' (76 min.),
a well-edited assembly of interview footage, film
clips and behind-the-scenes photos. Bo Svenson,
Fred Williamson, special effects supervisor Gino
De Rossi and, of course, Castellari (among others)
look back 30 years to reminisce on the making
of Inglorious Bastards.
Especially interesting is Castellari's take on
how he coped with the disaster that befell the
production in mid-shoot —
the Italian government passed a stringent anti-terrorism
law (the notorious Red Brigades were very active
at the time) resulting in the confiscation of
all firearms used in the movie! One would think
it impossible to shoot a war film without guns,
but the director and his craftsmen formulated
an ingenious solution... You'll just have to see
the documentary to find out what they came up
with. Also fascinating is a look at the highly
detailed models and foreground miniatures used
for the major FX sequences. (Note: Should one
be disinclined to sit through the commentary track
on Disc 1, this doc covers much the same ground
only in greater detail.) Rounding out the second
disc is the 13-minute 'then-and-now' featurette
Back to the War Zone, in which Castellari
takes a video tour of Italian locations used in
the film.
The
set's third disc is an audio CD of four tracks
from composer Francesco De Masi's score. These
cuts represent the only surviving music cues from
the film; the rest were accidentally recorded
over (and thus lost) in the 1980s. Truth be told
this is rather generic-sounding 'military adventure'
music, not particularly memorable, but it's a
nice little bonus feature all the same.
7/24/08
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