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Ilsa,
She-Wolf of the SS DVD Anchor
Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment has answered the prayers of sleaze fans everywhere with the release of the Ilsa films (three out of four of them anyway--Ilsa, Tigress of Siberia is the missing one) on DVD, and, get ready for this, they're completely UNCUT and LETTERBOXED, and they look and sound fantastic! Shot in nine days on the old Hogan's Heroes sets (!), Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS (1974) stars Dyanne Thorne as Ilsa, a World War II Nazi commandant with an insatiable appetite for sex and sadism. Her Medical Camp 9 is a house of horrors as she performs tortuous medical "experiments" on her (frequently naked) female prisoners, and castrates the male lovers who fail to please her. It's all to prove that women can withstand more pain than men (Uh-huh). Produced by H.G. Lewis' former partner, David F. Friedman (using the pseudonym Herman Traeger), Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS is a gleefully nasty "roughie" that doesn't skimp on the blood or the babes. In Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1975), Ilsa pops up in the Middle East (actually Glendale, California!), guarding the harem of creepy oil baron El Sharif (the pseudonymous Victor Alexander, erroneously rumored to be actor/ monologist Spalding Gray). It's never explained just how Ilsa managed to escape her death at the end of She-Wolf of the SS , but then, since this film seems to take place in the present day (the 1970's, or, roughly 30 years after the first film), logic has been temporarily kicked aside. Assisted by the (frequently naked) karate-fighting Amazon twin sidekicks Velvet (Nurse Sherri' s Marilyn Joi) and Satin (Black Shampoo' s Tanya Boyd), Ilsa traffics in the white slave trade and tortures lots and lots of (frequently naked) people. Euro-trash vet Ivan Rassimov (Shock ) and Russ Meyer ingenues Uschi Digart (Supervixens ) and Haji (Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! ) add some class to the otherwise unknown cast. Director of Photography Dean Cundey later shot films for John Carpenter (Halloween through The Thing ) and graduated to the big time with Back to the Future ,Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Jurassic Park . The next sequel was planned to be (get ready for this) Ilsa Meets Bruce Lee in the Bermuda Triangle . Before that could happen, Dyanne Thorne played a character similar to Ilsa in Jess Franco's Greta the Mad Butcher (1977). Alternately known as Wanda the Wicked Warden , Greta's House Without Men and The Penitentiary of Perverted Women , the film finally became an "unofficial" Ilsa film when it was released on video in the early '80's as Ilsa the Wicked Warden . The second "official" sequel, Ilsa, Tigress of Siberia, was released in 1977. This time around, Ilsa/Greta/Wanda runs a women's insane asylum/jungle prison. Not only do you get the requisite torture, dismemberment and copious amounts of female nudity (this is a Jess Franco film, after all), but there's a snuff film subplot and even a healthy dose of cannibalism! Franco himself co-stars, along with his wife and frequent star (the frequently naked) Lina Romay. Anchor Bay Entertainment presents the Ilsa films in absolutely stunning, widescreen (1.66:1, 16X9 enhanced) transfers that are without a doubt the definitive video versions. The Dolby Digital Mono soundtracks are clean, and compliment the crisp transfers just fine. Each disc also contains an original trailer (Wicked Warden' s includes the surreal tagline, "Wanda the Wicked Warden...starring Dyanne Thorne as Greta"!) and biography/filmography sections for Thorne, Director Don Edmonds and (on She-Wolf of the SS ) Producer David F. Friedman. Ah, but now the quibble. Each disc contains an audio commentary track (Star Dyanne Thorne, Edmonds and Friedman on She-Wolf ; Thorne, Edmonds and co-star Howard Maurer on Harem Keeper , and Thorne and Maurer on Wicked Warden ). For some reason, a British "humorist" named Martin Lewis has been chosen to be the moderator on the audio commentary tracks. Whoever this guy is, he constantly interrupts the participants to make quips and interject his own lame observations. Countless anecdotes are interrupted, then lost because of this asshole's self-centered interjections.To add insult to injury, he obviously has no prior knowledge of the films or the personnel involved. He reads their credits from The Internet Movie Database, and proudly admits that hešs never even heard of Jess Franco! Why, oh why is this guy moderating the discussions? All things considered, Anchor Bay has done another bang-up job with the Ilsa releases. Not only are they among the finest exploitation DVD's ever, but they've given sleaze-loving perfectionists everywhere a reason to believe. Which reminds me, I really should call my mom. Official Website: |
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Boy, I wish I had a dime for every time my mom has asked me, "Lee,
when are we gonna see the Ilsa movies on DVD, completely
uncut and letterboxed?" My mom's a trooper, but even she's getting
tired of squinting through the various fuzzy bootleg versions, looking
for the elusive extra two frames of footage that everyone else has
missed.
