Tag: war

The Swimmers

  By

★★
“Sink or swim.”

This is the story of Syrian sisters Yusra Mardini and her sister Sarah, played by real-life sisters Nathalie and Manal Issa. Growing up, they were trained by their father, a professional swimmer himself, and had the goal of reaching the Olympics for their country. The (still ongoing) Syrian Civil War led to the sisters leaving their homeland, and this is mostly the story of their journey, through Turkey, across the Mediterranean in a very flimsy dinghy to Greece, then across Europe to Germany. It’s a journey fraught with peril, on which predators looking to scam migrants (or worse), lurk at every turn. However…

I don’t typically like to get political here, but when a film explicitly does, I will go there. I have every sympathy for refugees, who want safety. But once you leave your home country and reach a safe destination, that’s it. If you then decide to move on – making a beeline for a country where lax immigration laws let you pull the rest of your family with you – you’re not a refugee, you’re an economic migrant. My sympathy for you drops a whole order of magnitude. It’s like if your house burns down, I feel sorry for you. It doesn’t give you the right to move into the neighbourhood’s swankiest residence. Most of the film’s attempts to pull on my heartstrings failed due to this. As soon as the sisters left the Turkish beach, they were 100% responsible for putting themselves back in danger.

Rant over. What about the film? It’s a bit of a mixed bag. Having sisters playing sisters definitely works. Especially at that age, this is the kind of relationship which is hard to simulate for teenage actors. There’s a genuineness here, for obvious reasons, which makes the family devotion at the film’s core, easy to see and appreciate. Less successful is the apparent random switching between languages. Many conversations occur in a hodge-podge of English and Arabic. While I can’t speak to the authenticity of it, as a viewer, it was jarring to switch repeatedly from listening to reading subtitles. I ended up basically tuning out the dialogue and sticking with the subs.

I appreciate the necessity of bending the facts to fit a cinematic narrative, but this probably goes too far. It’s one thing to have Yusra overhear snark from other competitors about how she doesn’t deserve to be there. But maybe avoid this when the movie then omits to mention the only swimmers she beat were, basically, other charity cases? The Olympic Selection Time was 60.80 seconds. Mardini finished in 69.21, and even her personal best is more than five seconds off the OST. The awkward truth is, she really did not deserve to be there, but few are greater at virtue-signalling than the IOC. It all feels like there are probably better refugee stories which could have been told. All the gloss this applies to its tale. can’t disguise that it is uncomfortably close to well-made propaganda.

Dir: Sally El-Hosaini
Star: Nathalie Issa, Manal Issa, Ahmed Malek, Matthias Schweighöfer

The Escape

  By

★★
“Not so great…”

I’m just going to begin by quoting the opening credit titles. Spelling, grammar and punctuation as received. “At the early stage of Republic of China, Yuan Hsi Hai wanted to rebel the democratic government & be the king. But there were 300,000 soldiers at Yuan Wan under the command of General Tsai obstructed his desire, so he cheated General Tsai to Peking & confined his movements. So Yuan who lived in Chu Jen Hall could fulfil his ambition but…” I reproduce this because, to a large extent, that’s everything I’ve got in terms of the over-arching plot here. It’s all about Tsai (Kwan) getting out of the city, in order to lead his troops and, presumably, frustrate Yuan’s dictatorial ambitions.

Key to this is Peking Opera star Hsiao Yu (Lee), who is hired by Yuan’s men to keep an eye on the General. However, she’s not as loyal as her employer would hope, and she gradually becomes attached to and involved with Tsai. This eventually results in her helping him to escape the house arrest under which he has been placed. I believe this to be true with… let’s say 90% confidence. There does appear to be other stuff going on: none of it is able to make it through the terrible presentation, and out the other side, to provide details which I prepared to commit to the keyboard. It’s kinda clear why Lee’s Queen Boxer made it out in the West, and this didn’t, even though both were made around the same time.

This did rather well at Taiwan’s 1973 Golden Horse awards, winning Best Film, Leading Actor, Screenplay and a special award for “Outstanding Performance” going to Lee (she lost Best Leading Actress to Hsiao-Lao Lin in A Heroic Fight). All I can say is, it must have been a very slow year in cinema, for this largely plodding and uninteresting history-political drama to have triumphed. Though, again, the presentation does it no justice. For example, there’s one scene where Tsai is repeatedly writing something in large letters on paper. It’s clearly very important to him. Unfortunately, the subtitles – as ever, intended for a Chinese audience, not a Western one – don’t bother to translate it. So its significance is entirely lost.

Lee is about the only reason to watch this, and the film definitely goes up a gear whenever she’s on screen. Her background actually was in the Peking Opera, making this right in her wheel-house. The director – and some sources also credit both Kwan and Florence Yu Fung-Chi – wisely lets her talent shine through, and it’s a no-nonsense approach that works. Witness, for example, the casual way, she shoves a victim out of the way with her feet, after crushing his larynx. But one of the problems is, I honestly couldn’t tell you who’s she’s fighting at the end, or why, since the General has already escaped. It’s just another element lost in translation here, like so many others, and leaves this an underwhelming entity, in the only form available.

Dir: Min-Hsiung Wu
Star: Judy Lee, Peter Yang Kwan, Lee Hung, Cheung Kwong-Chiu 

Marilia, the Warlord, by Morgan Cole

  By

Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

This is a fairly classic “rise from nowhere” story, yet is well-executed and done in a world which is interesting for its differences. The heroine is – surprise! – Marilia, whom we first meet on the battlefield, about to face an opponent of superior numbers. We then flash back to her childhood, growing up in a Tyracian brothel. Her mother was one of the “painted ladies,” but after she dies, Marilia and her brother Annuweth are on increasingly thin ice. Their effort to run away is unsuccessful, yet does bring them a chance at a new life. While it’s here that Marilia discovers her tactical savvy through board games, it’s not without its downside, the siblings being split up after Marilia enters an arranged marriage in another territory.

Yet that, too, has its pluses, for her new home of Svartennos is a little more liberated in terms of gender equality. This matters, especially after her husband dies and she inherits his responsibilities, which include war. There’s also a somewhat convenient prophecy about their warrior queen Svartana: “That someday, when the island is in peril… the spirit of Svartana will return in the form of another, to lead out people to victory and save the island.” No prizes for guessing, this is something which Marilia can leverage to her advantage, especially when combined with her genuine tactical wits.

There are a number of other threads woven into the plot, such as her relationship with her brother, and their joint passion for revenge on the warrior, Sethyron Andres, who killed their (absentee) father. That he’s known as “The Graver” gives you some idea of what to expect, and awkwardly, he’s now part of the forces on their side for the war. The resolution of this will bring them both back to Tyrace, and the very house where they grew up. This provides one of the rare bits of meaningful action for Marilia. While she is well-practiced with the sword, she discovers there’s a big gap between that and the hellish realities of the battlefield: it’s something Cole does not soft-pedal, to good effect.

I was quite surprised to realize the book is almost five hundred pages long, as it feels considerably shorter: I’d call this a good sign. It does take some time to get going, with the second half definitely moving at a quicker pace, compared to the first, which is more concerned with Marilia’s upbringing. Turns out, she’s gay – not that the book makes anything out of it, and even the heroine doesn’t quite know what she is (I’m guessing the culture doesn’t acknowledge it). It’s just a “Why do I want to spend my time with that woman?” thing. The first volume offers a nicely self-contained story, without many dangling elements, except the ultimate fate of The Graver. I suspect I may well end up finding out what happens there, in due course.

Author: Morgan Cole
Publisher: Self published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 4 in the Chrysathamere Trilogy series.

The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch

  By

★★★
“Civil War of the Sexes”

This sprightly TV movie from 1982 boasts a rather decent cast and, at least in the first half, manages to go in unexpected and interesting direction. It does end up descending into rather familiar territory thereafter, and the finale doesn’t manage to be as rousing as it should be. Yet it managed to keep my interest, and as this genre goes, that probably makes it better than average. It takes place in the last stages of the American Civil War, when the Southern women of Sweetwater have been left bereft of men, after the Confederate Army has recruited them all to their cause. Newly arrived in town is doctor Maggie McCulloch (Barnes), who has arrived to help her ailing aunt, Annie (Collins). She is shocked to discover Annie is less the mine owner touted in her letters, and more the owner of the town brothel.

With the men out of the picture, the local townswomen try to drive Annie and her business out of town, only to find the madam is made of sterner stuff. Such petty grievances are set aside with the arrival of Union forces under Colonel Samuel Isaacs (Duff), who demands Maggie’s services to help his injured son, Frank (former teen heart-throb, Donny Osmond!). Leaving Frank behind to take care of business elsewhere, the Colonel promises to leave the town alone if Frank is saved, though Confederate surgeon John Cain (Horsley) doubts he’ll keep his word. The women of Sweetwater need to be formed into a fighting unit capable of repelling Isaacs and his men if they return with ill intent.

From a modern perspective, perhaps the most unusual thing is seeing the Union soldiers (with the exception of Frank) portrayed as the villains of the piece. These days, the Confederate flag is basically the same thing as the swastika, yet the movie seems perfectly happy to accept that there were basically decent people on both sides. Pointedly, at the end, nobody mentions who won the war, because that’s not important – just that it’s over. Though on the other hand, there is literally not a single non-Caucasian in the entire movie. It’s flat-out impossible to imagine any depiction of the Civil War like this being made nowadays, making it a period piece almost as much as the era it represents.

That aside, the plot unfolds largely as you’d expect. There’s the initial tension between whores and housewives, and the women struggle to come to terms with the everyday business of running the town. For example, there’s a fire drill, which ends up with half the ladies thrashing around in shallow water, and some other slapstick involving whitewash, that is somewhere between lightly amusing and embarrassing. However, Barnes – at the time a sitcom star in Three’s Company – does a very good job of keeping the film grounded, and the supporting cast help admirably in that aspect. Collins is particularly good, projecting an attitude which clearly proclaims she will take no shit from anyone.

Inevitably, there’s the expected romance between Maggie and John, and the latter slowly succeeds in getting the townsfolk from literally falling over when they fire their weapons, to a reasonable degree of competence. On the one hand, it is implausible that civilians could defeat trained and experienced soldiers in a firefight. However, they don’t have to win, just make the situation unpleasant enough the Colonel decides it’s not worth it, and moves on. That perhaps happens rather too quickly, and the film might have benefited from devoting less time to the romantic aspects, in order to give us a more satisfying finale.

Obviously, given the medium, it’s never quite going to be able to live up to a title which feels considerably more “mature viewer” than the content here ever reaches. However, considering the limitations, it wisely concentrates on the dramatic elements, and that’s when it comes admirably close to being, not just a “real movie”, but a good one at that.

Dir: Philip Leacock
Star: Priscilla Barnes, Lee Horsley, Joan Collins, Howard Duff 

19 Girls and a Sailor

  By

★★
“I only see eight girls…”

The rather salacious title is actually a direct translation of the original Yugoslavian one: it seems to be hinting at an adult movie whose name was A Girl and 19 Sailors. The reality is, naturally, rather different. It’s a war movie, set in the final days of World War II, when the local partisans were fighting the Nazis. A group of women, under the command of Milja (Birkin) are given the task of escorting injured soldiers to safety, including “The Spaniard”/ He’s a partisan leader whom the Germans want to capture, in order to offer him in a prisoner exchange. It helps they have an informant in the partisans, helping them funnel their opponents to a precise location.

It’s a largely by-the-numbers war story, except for most of the protagonists being women. The main exception is Sailor (Gainsbourg), who has two of the partisans fall for him, including the second-in-command, Irena (Rozin). This angle largely negates the surprisingly forward-thinking approach of the plot as a whole, promoting the belief that women are too flighty and easily distracted by matters of the heart to make good soldiers. It’s a shame, as they seem largely competent and able to handle themselves. Well, except for the scene where a bunch of them suddenly decide to go swimming, and are then surprised by the appearance of a German platoon. I rolled my eyes at that a bit as well.

I’m not quite sure what two of France’s leading stars at the time are doing, suddenly appearing in an otherwise very Yugoslavian production. Even a local review seemed perplexed (all hail, Google Translate…), and was equally confounded by the director, who up until that point, had basically made documentaries. He certainly does not appear to have much of a handle on the dramatic elements, generating almost no tension out of what should, one would imagine, have been a good foundation for a thriller. Narrow escapes; fierce gun-battles; tension over the identity of the traitor in their midst. Oh, all of these exist, yet they feel little more than check-marks of obligation, and hardly anything about this will stick in your mind.

After losing a few supporting characters, but nobody of particular note, we reach the finale, where the women are trapped with no apparent escape route. Until, that is, one of them suddenly remembers the existence of a cave offering safe passage. Fortunate amnesia. This is, of course, where we get another expected element – the heroic sacrifice of certain people, mounting a rearguard defense which allows their sisters-in-arms to make their escape, and also reveal the identity of the Nazi informess. The scenery is wild and untamed, and the photography does a decent job of capturing this. The same can’t particularly be said about the characters, as these never become much more than women in uniform. Or not in uniform. That works too.

Dir: Milutin Kosovac
Star: Jane Birkin, Serge Gainsbourg, Spela Rozin, Dina Rutic
a.k.a. Ballade à Sarajevo or Devetnaest djevojaka i jedan mornar

Sisters Apart

  By

★★
“A phony kind of war.”

There seem to have been quite a few movies out of Europe over the past couple of years, about the female soldiers fighting in Kurdistan for independence with the PKK and related groups. French films Les Filles du Soleil and Soeurs D’Armes both covered similar territory. It seems fertile territory, offering an inbuilt contradiction between the general perception of how Islam treats women, and them taking part in front-line action, in a way well beyond what “liberal” Western democracies typically allow. Oddly, it feels as if most of the stories being told, involve a search for relatives, and I’m a bit ambivalent about this. It feels slightly lazy writing, as if there’s no other reason a woman could want to take up arms in order to defend her homeland.

This does at least somewhat sidestep that issue with its set-up. The heroine here is Rojda Xani (Bagriacik), a Kurd refugee now living in Germany, and a citizen of the country who has joined their army. Her mother comes to join her, but does not bring Rojda’s sister, Dilan (de Haas), as previously arranged. Indeed, Danil seems to have dropped off the grid almost entirely, a situation which causes Rojda increasing concern – as if trying to get her mother to adapt to life in Germany wasn’t stressful enough. Despite qualms of those around her, Rojda decides to apply for the post of interpreter with the Bundeswehr who are deployed to Kurdistan, training soldiers there. On arrival, she finds a possible source of information about her sister’s location, but getting her to talk won’t be easy. The harsh reality of the conflict also brings into focus Rojda’s (largely selfish) reasons for being there.

This is almost entirely low key – likely too much so for its own good. That’s particularly so at the ending, where things don’t so much end, as peter out in a largely unsatisfying way. It is perhaps “realistic”, in that life is rarely tidy or follows a three-act structure. However, if I wanted real life, I’d watch a documentary. Rojda does make for an interesting heroine, one trying to balance between her own family culture and the standards and practices of her new home. She’s certainly far from dumb, speaking at least three languages, but is also fairly impenetrable, emotionally. Much of the time, it’s hard to be sure what she’s feeling. I’m not sure if this was deliberate – it would be in line with the film’s understated approach – or a shortcoming, either in writing, direction or performance.

There are some points where this does come to life. For example, her new colleagues quizzing her about life in Germany – can girls there sit next to a boy in the cinema? Again, this demonstrates the weird double standard (to Western eyes) by which these women live. Or there’s the bafflement of her commanding officer (Letkowski) when he’s told the Kurdish women have nobody in a similar role: “Sometimes she gives orders, sometimes I do.” I wish there had been more of these moments, which render the near passivity of the rest, all the more infuriating.

Dir: Daphne Charizani
Star: Almila Bagriacik, Zübeyde Bulut, Christoph Letkowski, Gonca de Haas
a.k.a. Im Feuer

Maid of Baikal, by Preston Fleming

  By

Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆½

I have always been intrigued by alternate histories. These are bits of speculative fiction, which are based on a “What if…?” premise. For example, what if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo? Or what if John F. Kennedy’s assassination had failed? Creators speculate on the way the world might have changed, in ways big and small. I find such creations endlessly fascinating, giving me a strong suspicion that, at certain points, history teeters on a razor’s edge, where a seemingly insignificant event can have an impact far beyond its scale. Here, it’s a single person who changes the course of history. For what might have happened, had Joan of Arc turned up, not in medieval France, but in Russia, during the aftermath of the 1917 revolution?

Naturally, it’s not Joan per se. But it’s still a teenage girl, Zhanna Dorokhina, guided by “voices” from God, who becomes a rallying point for one side in the battle between the Bolshevik revolutionary, and their opponents, the White Russians. She has an almost miraculous ability both to divine the correct tactics, and also avoid fatal injury, even as she rides into the thick of battle. Yet in so doing, she becomes a target for the opposition, who plot to get rid of her, by whatever means are necessary. The White Russians are supported with resources from a number of Western nations, and the story is told through the eyes of Captain Edmund du Pont, an American who is helping set up and manage a wireless network when he encounters Zhanna. Initially attracted to her, he eventually is convinced by her righteous passion for her cause. 

It is very much taking the elements of Joan’s story, and transplanting them to Russia in 1918-19. There is the same initial struggle to be taken seriously, working her way up the chain of command. Then her growing army of followers, snowballing into success after success. Just as inevitably, if you’re familiar with her French predecessor, is her betrayal, capture by the enemy, and – I trust this is not a spoiler – tragic death, before her mission from God can be fully completed. Yet Fleming does a generally good job of weaving these into the established historical narrative, so they feel an organic whole.

If I had to pick a flaw, it might be that the film spends to much time with Captain du Pont. I would have preferred more about the Maid, rather than his romantic entanglements. However, this does give a sense of observing history, rather than being part of it. As such, perhaps the most effective part is the epilogue, which looks back over events of the 15 years since the White Russians took Moscow. Which, as even casual observers should know, is not quite how things unfolded in reality. Though it appears, the Maid only delayed, and perhaps slightly changed the flavour of, the dictatorship which ended up ruling the country.

Author: Preston Fleming
Publisher: PF Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book.
Stand-alone novel.

A Resistance

  By

★★★
“Not your usual women-in-prison film…”

This takes place in 1919-20, when Korea was under occupation by the Japanese [there seems to be quite a lot of this about; I’ve seen a bunch of Chinese movies set when that country was occupied by Japan as well]. Even demonstrating against the Japanese, or in favour of Korean independence, was sternly forbidden, with those taking part likely to be arrested and thrown in prison for months. If they were lucky, that is: an opening caption tells us 7,500 were killed in the protests or died in jail subsequently. Even for those merely arrested, this was not a “nice” prison, to put it mildly, with horrendously over-crowded conditions (24 to a cell!), freezing temperatures and meagre rations.

Once such prisoner was Yu Gwan Sun (Go), 16 years old at the time of her imprisonment: her sentence was three years, due to contempt of court being added on to the normal charge. However, she would not be cowed by the punishment, and refused to bow to the will of her captors – for example, refusing to speak to them in Japanese, even though she could. Such disrespect, and her “defiant face”, inevitably brought Yu into conflict with the authorities, including the warden, and Korean collaborator Jung Chun-young, who acts as a translator. They try to break her will, but her refusal to accept even her status as a prisoner, never mind their authority, remains defiant.

The historical Yu does seem to have been an unrepentant, patriotic bad-ass, sometimes referred to as Korea’s Joan of Arc, and with at least half a dozen films based on her life story. While in prison, she wrote: “Even if my fingernails are torn out, my nose and ears are ripped apart, and my legs and arms are crushed, this physical pain does not compare to the pain of losing my nation… My only remorse is not being able to do more than dedicating my life to my country.” Joe films almost the whole movie in stark black-and-white, save for occasional coloured flashbacks, and music is also used sparingly. This certainly gives a realism to proceedings, though I did feel the portrayal here was a bit too good to be true – putting the “Saint” in “Saint Joan”, if you wish.

It may also be a little restrained, with the tortures inflicted on her coming across as little more than an inconvenience. Perhaps the little things here are most effective, such as the prisoners sharing body warmth, to try and protect a new-born baby. It builds to Yu’s carefully crafted act of defiance, leading a cheer for Korean independence which flows through the prison and to the outside world, triggering further anti-Japanese protests. Even after her fellow inmates are released, she is kept in jail: the final lines of dialogue are an exchange that sums up her obstinate refusal to give up. Asked “Why must you do this?,” Yu almost shrugs: “Then who will?” [She died at age 17, still in jail, a few days before her scheduled release date.] This shines a light onto an area of history I knew nothing about, though I’m hard pushed to say it illuminated much more than the heroine.

Dir: Joe Min-ho
Star: Go Ah-sung, Ryu Kyung-soo, Kim Sae-byuk, Kim Ye-eun

7 Women From Hell

  By

★★½
“Circling hell”

About the only review online I found for this, said it “may be the worst movie released in 1961.” I can only presume the writer of that statement has never seen The Beast of Yucca Flats. Even if I admit its weaknesses, Seven is nowhere near the same league of badness. Indeed, it starts off well, depicting the sudden invasion of Papua New Guinea by Japanese forces in 1942, with “enemy” civilians being herded into interment camps. The ones on the women’s side are a multi-national bunch, including Australian Grace Ingram (Owens), several Americans including Janet Cook (Craig), a German widow Ann Van Laer (Sylvia Daneel), Frenchwoman Claire Oudry (Darcel), and mixed-race nurse Mai-Lu Ferguson (Pilar Seurat). 

Initially, life is just about tolerable, with the camp commandant being mostly reasonable. But after he is killed in a bombing raid, his sadistic deputy takes over. When one of them knocks out a guard who tried to rape her, the women escape with the help of the camp doctor. But life on the outside is little better, especially with the Japanese in pursuit. Let’s just say, it doesn’t stay at seven women for very long. Without a compass, their odds of finding their way to safety are slim. Fortunately, they come across a downed American airman who has one. The bad news: he tells them their intended destination has already been abandoned. Then they meet the estate of German-Argentinean farmer Luis Hullman (Cesar Romero). Though is he as friendly as he initially appears to be?

It is important to realize this is very much a product of its era, when Hollywood was supremely disinterested in action heroines. We were still several years before even the arrival of Honey West on televisions, and there were few cases at the time where a female-led story-line would not be driven primarily by romance. It’s on that basis that the rating above has to be seen, cutting it some slack for the time in which it was made. By modern standards, sure, it’s fairly weak sauce. But the climax, where the women discover the truth about Luis and take action, feels progressive for the time. These women are – again, for the era – remarkably independent. They don’t need to be rescued by men: indeed, they’re the ones doing the rescuing of the airman.

The weakness is mostly on the character front, as outside of their nationalities, the protagonists are not given anything like an adequate amount of depth. The script doesn’t seem to know what to do with them once they are outside the confines of the prison camp either, at one point resorting to a bathing scene which had me rolling my eyes at the indignity of it all. Credit for not making the Japanese irredeemably villainous, though I’m not convinced the shooting location of Hawaii is an adequate stand-in for Papua New Guinea. Definitely not the worst movie released in 1961, by quite a considerable margin.

Dir: Robert D. Webb
Star: Patricia Owens, Denise Darcel, Margia Dean, Yvonne Craig

Hell Hath No Fury

  By

★★★½
“Grave consequences.”

I’m quite familiar with the work of director Jesse Johnson, mostly through his collaborations with Scott Adkins, who is probably the best action star you’ve never heard of. Some of their movies together have been top-tier, in particular Avengement, so I was very curious to see what he’d do with a film which – according to the cover – has a female lead. Well, that is slightly misleading in that the heroine does take a back-seat as far the action goes. But there’s still easily enough to qualify here, and she’s definitely not your typical character in a war-time setting like this.

To be blunt: Marie is a collaborator with the Nazis who occupied France. In particular, she was the mistress of S.S. officer Von Bruckner (Bernhardt), until their relationship goes pear-shaped (to put it mildly), and she’s shipped off to Ravensbruck concentration camp. Three years later, with the Allies sweeping through France, she is released and returns to her home-town. They haven’t forgotten her collaboration, so she has her head shaved and a swastika painted on her forehead. Marie is rescued from further indignity by Major Maitland (Mandylor) after playing her trump card, telling him she knows the location of a cache of gold in a local cemetery. However, on arrival there, it’s quickly clear they’re not the only ones after it. The gravedigger wants in, and Von Bruckner is also on his way back, hoping to collect the stash on his way out of the country.

There’s something quite Sergio Leone about this. The cemetery treasure idea is clearly taken from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, along with the three-way stand-off at the end, and the way Marie tries to play the two sides against each other reminded me of A Fistful of Dollars. This isn’t as stylized, the cinematography is nowhere near as sublime, and it’s largely restricted to the single location of the cemetery. Yet it’s solid enough, and the lack of traditional “good guys” (or girls!) – another similarly to the spaghetti Western genre – is quite refreshing in the context. Everyone here is driven strictly by one imperative: getting the gold for themselves, by any means necessary: no-one is the slightest bit interested in returning it to its rightful owners.

Alliances are formed and dissolved as the Americans, French, Germans and Marie all look to come out on top, though there are nasty surprises for everyone as things unfold, and the Nazi forces arrive on the scene. This leads to an extended gun-battle around the tombstones, and eventually, the stand-off mentioned. I can’t say I felt the ending was entirely satisfying: it didn’t make sense, considering all that had gone before. Giving Marie more to do, rather than simply manipulating her way towards the gold, would have been nice. However, the journey to get there was briskly entertaining, and the freshness of the characters in this particular scenario, also helped sustain my interest with relative ease to the end credits.

Dir: Jesse V. Johnson
Star: Nina Bergman, Louis Mandylor, Daniel Bernhardt, Timothy V. Murphy
a.k.a. Ave Marie