FIVE FOR HELL

Gianni Garko in Five for Hell

Aka Cinque per l'inferno (I), Cinq pour l'enfer (Fr)
1968
Italy
Paolo Moffa and Aldo Addobbati for Ambrosiana Cin.ca, Filmstar
Director: Frank Kramer [Gianfranco Parolini]
Story: Sergio Garrone
Screenplay: Renato Izzo, Goanfranco Parolini
Cinematography: Sandro Mancori {Cromoscope - Eastmancolor}
Music: Vasco Mancuso
Editor: Gianfranco Parolini
Art director: Giorgio Desideri
Running time: 95 mins
Italian takings: 241.000.000
Filmed: Elios Studios
Cast: John [Gianni] Garko (Lieutenant Hoffman), Margaret Lee (Helga Richter), Klaus Kinski (Colonel Muller), Nick Jordan [Aldo Canti] (Nick), Sal [Salvatore] Borgese (Al Siracusa), Luciano Rossi (Johnny White), Sam [Samson] Burke (Sergeant McCarthy), Irio Fantini (Gen Freidrich Kaburska)
Uncredited: Bill Vanders (an allied General), Andre Esterazy

This is available as one of the films on the Battles of WW2 DVD set. It's a bootleg, so the quality isn't tip-top, but it's perfectly watchable despite being slightly soft. Also on the boxset are Giorgio Ferroni's The Battle of El Alemein, Jose Luis Merino's Battle of the Last Panzer (aka Hell Commandos) and a UK TV movie, Hitler's SS.

50,000 men are going to die unless the allied troops can find out more about an imminent German attack, Plan K. The blueprints for this are kept in the locked safe of a villa in occupied Italy, and are guarded by a huge number of troops. Also staying at the villa is nasty Nazi Hans Muller (Klaus Kinski), who is attempting to stamp out the widespread partisan activity in the area. All of which makes obtaining the blueprints well nigh impossible.

Klaus Kinski in Five for Hell

The Allied generals come up with an eccentric idea: sending in a group of oddball soldiers, led by baseball fanatic Lieutenant Hoffman (Gianni Garko), to steal them. They are: Al Siracusa (Sal Borgese), a safecracker extraordinaire; Nick (Nick Jordan), athlete and trampoline ace; Sergeant McCarthy (Sammy Burke), a big lunkhead with ill-fitting shirts; and Johnny White (Luciano Rossi), who can read and wears spectacles, thereby identifying him as the intellectual of the group. Not all of them will survive the mission.

In the late 1960s, as the spy and spaghetti western genres began to run out of steam, a considerable number of war films were produced in Italy and Spain. They make for a generally forgettable bunch; the best of them (Dirty Heroes (Dalle Ardenne all'inferno, 67), Probability Zero (Probabilità zero, 69)) are entertaining time wasters, the worst can be painfully dull. Most of the storylines were borrowed almost wholesale from a couple of successful blockbusters of the time, Where Eagles Dare (68) and The Dirty Dozen (67), in that they featured a disparate group of individuals working in inhospitable territory to carry out a seemingly impossible assignment.

While Five for Hell follows this model faithfully enough, it is also possibly the most Italianesque of such films produced in that country. Despite the serious subject matter, it comes across as a picaresque adventure: the characters are rather strange (at one point Nick Jordan and Sal Borgese have a protracted tap-dancing scene for no reason whatsoever), the dialogue baroque and the most unconvincing elements of the plot are highlighted with an almost willful glee. Apart from a rather cheesy coda, it lacks anything resembling gravitas, and is none the worse for it.

Despite frequent references to the Spaghetti Western (the casting of Gianni 'Sartana' Garko, the use of a Jew's harp on the soundtrack), the genre to which this has the closest kinship is the caper movie. The minimal narrative escalates towards a protracted break-in, which of course doesn't work quite to plan, much like the heists of Rififi (Du rififi chez les hommes, 55) or Grand Slam (Ad ogni costo, 67).

Margaret Lee in Five for Hell

Gianfranco Parolini was never a director who strove to bring realism to his work, but this is possibly the only war film that could ever feature exploding base balls and a portable trampoline as a secret weapon. Nonetheless, despite a climactic battle that goes on way too long, it's decently made on what was obviously a modest budget, featuring plenty of action and cool pyrotechnics. Parolini definitely has something of the auteur about him: virtually all of his films feature gymnasts, bizarre gadgets and huge body counts, whether they are westerns, spy films or peplums. The presence of the aforementioned Jordan and Borgese, both regular performers for the director, also gives this the slight feel of a Three Fantastic Supermen film once-removed: Three Fantastic Supermen in Occupied Europe, maybe.

Alongside the catchy soundtrack, this also benefits for a couple of really very good performances from Klaus Kinski, all languorous sadism as the kinky SS man, and Margaret Lee, as a rather cold undercover agent. The two of them virtually only appear in scenes with each other, and make for an effective double act (one which they must have honed over the course of the dozen odd films they made together).

Matt Blake