Ilsa Tigress of Siberia,

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 Of course that means leaving out the Jess Franco’s Ilsa the Wicked Warden (1977), which as I previously said was not originally made as part of the Ilsa franchise.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.

 

Covered from head to foot in furs with her legs wrapped around a large stallion....

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.

 

Ilsa shows off her greatest attributes.

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.

 

He will never look the same 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.

Ilsa the Wicked Warden.

Although said to be the third film in the series, it was not originally made as part of the Ilsa franchise. The main character’s name was Greta del Pino and the sexploitation romp was to be called Greta, the Mad Butcher or Wanda the Wicked Warden. Dyanne Thorne, who had previously appeared as Ilsa in She Wolf of the SS (1975) and Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976), excepted an offer from Spanish director to play del Pino, the sadistic warden of what at first appears to be an psychiatric asylum for young women, a character that is Ilsa in everything but name. The company holding the film rights changed the title to Ilsa the Wicked Warden (1977) and most of the references to “Greta” were subsequently removed.

 

Normal amount of naked ladies....

Lovers of the naked form will not be disappointed as the film opens with a clutch of young ladies in the shower washing each other naked bodies one of whom escapes following a pre- planned shower room diversion. Scantily dressed with two guards tracking her, she is shot but manages to stumble on to a large house in the jungle (sorry I neglected to tell you its set in an unnamed country in South America). A sympathetic doctor who takes her in and tends to her wounds occupies the house. But he can’t stop the asylum guards from returning her to the clinic, shortly after she’s reported as dead. Doctor Arcos, played by the films director Jess Franco, wants to expose the practices and indifference to life that takes place at the clinic and call’s a press conference to garner support but without much luck. At the end of the conference he is accosted by Abbie Phillips (Tania Busselier) the dead girls sister who wants him to commit her to the clinic to allow her to work undercover to find out how and why her sister died. But the moment she arrive at the asylum she wishes she had not, immediately getting a taste of the brutal regime from its warden Greta del Pino (Ilsa).  

....and torture....

Produced in Canada it attempts to offer a little sophistication by inserting a political subplot but don’t worry it boasts the normal trademarks of an Ilsa movie: demented women, cruelty and barbaric torture, bad acting, with over the top fake accents and a really dodgy script plus some of the dialog is dubbed - but what more would you expect from this European grindhouse movie?

 

....and of course Dyanne Thorne as Ilsa.

Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks.

The queen of exploitation films Dyanne Thorne returns as Ilsa in Don Edmonds sequel to Ilsa She Wolf of the SS (1975), Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976) another potent brew of sex and sadism. This time we are somewhere in the Middle East. A helicopter delivers three large crates to a pre-arranged point in the desert. The heavy crates are loaded on to a lorry accompanied by armed guards and driven to a grand palace. Waiting on the steps of the palace is the keeper of the El Sharif’s (Spalding Grey) elite harem guard and her two oiled dark skinned topless lesbian assistants, Satin (Tanya Boyd) and Velvet (Marilyn Joi). While she is waiting Ilsa beats a beggar with her whip to pass the time. The crates finally arrive and we discover that they contain three beautiful young women all of whom are gagged, drugged and wearing nothing else but locked chastity belts! The first is an heiress to an American supermarket chain, the second is Scandinavian actress and the third an Asian equestrian champion. All kidnapped victims are to be added to the harem of the mad oil baron for the furtherance of his and his guest’s sexual pleasures. Other girls in the harem are force-fed and have silicone injections to fatten them up for sale at the local white slavery auction. We witness the normal amount of torture and violence including Ilsa two assistants ripping off a mans testicles, head cages with rats and hairy big spiders, flesh eating ants and a breast vice. 

This man looses more than his pride!

As well as being the queen of torture....

The story that Langston Stafford uses to cover all this mayhem is twofold. Firstly the visit of two Americans to negotiate a deal for El Sharif oil, one of whom is a young good looking stud that Ilsa can’t resist explaining even she has normal womanly desires and passions, secondly there’s a subplot which involves a young boy locked away in a cage who is the true heir to the throne of this oil rich desert kingdom.

 

....Ilsa also has womanly desires....

....and likes to look her best.

Smarmy sleaze and gore are again the main ingredients of this second film in the franchise with Thorne brilliantly transposing her role from Nazi Germany to the Middle East. She has been quoted as saying that the role of Ilsa was a double-edged sword. It brought her a certain amount of fame but which came with a price. Being famous, as Ilsa didn’t lead her to a career in Hollywood!    Lighter in tone than the first film but surprisingly well made for a movie with such a limited budget. Grindhouse movies are not to every one’s taste but if you enjoy this genre then I’m sure you will appreciate this movie.