Siberia 1953. Two-armed men hunt
another through deep snow. The escapee is killed with a lance through the
throat to the obvious pleasure of an attractive woman clothed from head to foot
in furs sitting on a large stallion. She brings the blood soaked body
back to Gulag 14 a men’s prison camp where we witness the crushing of his head
to mash by a giant hammer. This sets the scene for the third sequel ‘proper’ to
the Ilsa franchise Ilsa Tigress of Siberia (1977). Of course that means leaving out the Jess Franco’s Ilsa
the Wicked Warden (1977), which as I previously said was not originally
made as part of the Ilsa franchise.
But fans of Dyanne Thorne will not be disappointed as she plays the Ilsa
character in all four films.
This time Don Edmonds is absent
from the director’s chair, in his place is Jean LaFleur whose day job as a
co-writer of documentary shorts perhaps that explains why the film is divided
into two parts that almost seem like two separate films! Its produced by the low budget American
B-movie director Roger Corman. The first part as I have already explained is
set in a Siberian prison camp, a place with the sole intention is to brainwash anyone who disagrees with Joseph
Stalin’s communist regime. There are various punishments administered for
disobeying the fur clad Comrade Colonel as Ilsa is addressed in this movie.
They include arm wrestling over a chain saw where one of the contestants looses
his complete hand and wrist, and where prisoners are dropped into a pit and fed
to Ilsa tiger that certainly seems to enjoy the meal. Another punishment is
where a prisoner is lowed into ice-cold water until he freezes to death, one of
whom we see affixed to a tree to be used as a signpost to the camp! Ilsa spends her free evenings indulging in
sexual orgies with her Cossacks where we get to see why Thorne was chosen for
the part! All is hunky dory until the fall of Stalin and then the camp has to
be burned to the ground to eliminate any evidence of the atrocities that took
place there and Comrade Colonel and her chosen henchmen make there escape.
We now move on to the second part
of the film. It is 1977 and we are in Montreal Canada and Ilsa and her men are
running a whorehouse. Taking advantage of the services on offer are three men
who are part of a visiting Russian hockey team. Just to explain that one of
these men is the link between Gulag 14 and Montreal. Andrei Chicurin (Michel
Morin) was the only prisoner at the camp that Ilsa was unable to break and he
managed to escape when the camp was abandoned. When Ilsa realises whom one of
her clients actually is she takes great pride in humiliating him all over
again.
The first half of the movie set
in Siberia is what we have come to expect from this grindhouse series of
movies, lots of blood, torture and naked bodies, but the section set in Canada
could be any sexploitation movie. But saying that I can’t help admit that along
with the other films, especially my own favourite She
Wolf of the SS (1975), this one is politically incorrect
entertainment at its best with Dyanne Thorne, and her ‘great’ Russian accent,
always a joy to watch. The final scenes where we see Ilsa sitting in the middle
of an ice field burning her money to keep warm is a joy in it self. Still for
those of you that dislike Ilsa films you are safe in the assumption that no
more will ever be made!
The End. |
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