★★
“Great poster. Shame about the film.”
I guess this shows that the concept of the “mockbuster” is not something invented by The Asylum. This came out in 1978, the year after the Ilsa franchise had come to an end with Tigress of Siberia. But France apparently decided it wanted to get into the act, and created its own knock-off Ilsa, in the shape of Helga (Longo, who has a cameo early on in Bruce Lee’s Way of the Dragon, and was also in War Goddess). What this does, is mostly act as proof of just how damn good Dyanne Thorne was in her role. She may have been unable to pronounce “Reich” consistently, but she went at the part with gusto, and had an amazing amount of presence, essential to the job. Longo simply doesn’t, and as a result, this is largely pedestrian and dull.
Opening with a sprightly and thoroughly inappropriate intro tune, we find ourselves in a cabinet meeting in an unnamed dictatorship. Names like “Helga”, as well as the angular uniform patches, suggest somewhere Fascist, but the bearded, cigar-smoking leader and his #2 called Gomez indicate a Cuban influence. Whatever. Helga is assigned to run the castle turned political prison in Stilberg, which appears to contain… Oh, maybe a dozen female inmates, tops, who are occasionally shipped out to a nearby farm. Though what they do there, apart from getting sexually harassed by the farmer – called “Doc” for no apparent reason – is unclear. The latest prisoner is Elisabeth Vogel (Gori), daughter of a rebel leader. Helga is intent ob breaking her, but Elisabeth has her own plans, assisted by a guard (Allan) who is secretly on her side.
Let’s be clear: Helga would be chewed up and spat out by Ilsa, in about five seconds. To start with, there’s her fashion sense: we first see her in a floral dress more befitting a PTA meeting. Ok, it’s a cabinet meeting, but would Ilsa have cared about that? While Helga does eventually slide into a pair of tight leather pants and a red shirt, if you’re going to embrace the S/M aesthetic, you need to do so wholeheartedly. But the most embarrassing scene sees Helga break down in tears on her bed, just because a prisoner has said some mean things to her. C’mon. What self-respecting villainess would ever do that?
There is an underwhelming lack of imagination in the sadism here too. No medical experiments or hanging them on blocks of ice here, just some light whipping. The nudity is copious, with forest in Amazonian quantities, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. But it, too, is almost as tedious as the over-frequent shots of truck convoys, going from castle to farm – or, for a bit of variety, farm to castle. I will say, the production values are decent, and the castle is a better location than Ilsa managed (recycled sets from Hogan’s Heroes!). But the pretty sheen cannot conceal the boredom and lack of invention at its heart.
Dir: Patrice Rhomm
Star: Malisa Longo, Patrizia Gori, Richard Allan, Dominique Aveline