DVD review: 'Inglorious Bastards'

Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Bastards" project has laid down heavy supporting fire for the DVD debut of the 1978 Italian combat film.

Tarantino points out that Enzo Castellari's WWII B-movie had virtually no rep in the United States until he starting marching out the title as as a remake concept. He discovered the WWII movie -- starring American tough guys Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson -- on a late-night KTLA broadcast decades ago.

"It became a personal little movie that only I knew about," Tarantino says in the "Inglorious Bastards" DVD extras. "In order to talk with anyone about (the film), I had to show it to them first."

Apparently the movie had a 10-second theatrical release in the U.S., three years after it debuted in Italy. "Whatever the Dirty Dozen did, they do it better," the marketing line went.

Now that Brad Pitt has signed on for the movie, "Bastards" ranks among the most famous movies no one has seen.

Severin Entertainment has released "Inglorious Bastards" in a "3-disc explosive edition." Lucky us, the badly dubbed movie turns out to be a real (not guilty) pleasure, with some great action scenes, bullet-spitting performances by its U.S. stars, lots of finely crafted fireballs and nude blondes firing machine guns.

Severin, a relatively new video company, already has earned its genre stripes by releasing a handful of Italian B-movies featuring delightfully gratuitous sex and violence.

"Inglorious Bastards" tracks back to "The Dirty Dozen," "Kelly's Heroes," "The Wild Bunch" and a pack of WWII films about G.I.s who go native and fight the war their way.

Our anti-heroes are prisoners en route to a military prison in France, still partly occupied by the Nazis. An air raid sets them free, and the escapees attempt to cross over into Switzerland by any means possible. Svenson plays the disgraced officer; Williamson is the wily Afro badass. Their companions include a jack-of-all-trades hippie (go figure), a coward who learns the manly ways of combat, and a Nazi deserter fed up with his country's futile war effort.

One thing leads to another, and the rogues end up shooting up a Nazi fortress and then trying to blow up a V-2 missile aboard a runaway train. Great stuff ... if you're not expecting "The Guns of Navarone."

The DVD includes a CD with the surviving original music from Francesco de Masi (the rest was erased for his kid's school play -- the extras tell the story). His fine music helps the movie stand apart from lesser B-fare.

Tarantino and director Castellari sit down for a talk about the original film, with the young filmmaker doing his usual motormouth bit. Castellari gets in a few words here and there, but mostly we hear from Tarentino. As usual, he's on the obnoxious side -- and, as usual, he's worth listening to.

The making-of docu includes interviews with Svenson, Williamson and a lot of below-the-line Italians.

Castellari and Williamson both recall that dealing with too-cool-for-school Svenson was "an experience." Svenson says the friction was "a turf thing." All three agree they're friends these days.

Williamson says he'd go back to making movies in Rome in a flash -- Svenson speaks of the "bittersweet reality" of his error in straying from mainstream moviemaking.

Filming became a bit of a farce as Italian authorities confiscated the production's weapons, citing domestic terrorism. Castellari rewrote the fortress scene to employ silent crossbows and slingshots instead of guns. Later, the production made replica firearms out of wood.

"So here we are re-creating life-and-death battles with guns made out of balsa wood," Svenson recalls. "It was hilarious."

Williamson did almost all of his stunts. (Get a load of the Italian stunt guys hurling themselves through the air when shot -- hilarious.) Michael Pergolani is terrific as the longhaired Italian prisoner with an endless supply of gadgets stashed in his fatigues -- a Q kind of guy in the field.

The movie comes in glorious 1.85.1 widescreen with the 16x9 enhancement. Colors are a tad better than OK. Audio is suitably blunt mono.

Severin's other Italian imports include:

"The Sister of Ursula": A sex-soaked giallo pic, featuring a killer and his magic phallus. Two sisters show up at a seaside resort just as well-ravished bodies start to pile up. Barbara Magnolfi (pictured above), a beauty beloved by the camera, is plenty of reason to watch. Director Enzo Milioni delivers a good half-hour talk about the production, which had plenty of drama of its own.

"Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals": Finnish hottie Sirpa Lane plays a journalist caught up in voodoo doings in the Caribbean. She screws her way to the heart of the island's underground resistance to the white man's nuclear power plant. Includes the "complete Disco Cannibal Blood Orgy sequence." Not as bitchen as it sounds, but there's plenty to heat to be found in this fun little movie. Directed by Joe D'Amato.

"The Beast in Space": Opens with a "Star Wars" bar sequence that's car-wreck awful. Sirpa Lane again, this time getting down with a "hugely endowed man-beast" of the stars. (Just like in her notorious "The Beast.") Not fun bad, just bad. Skip it.