Italian war movies aka Macaroni Combat

The Saloon
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I have seen it, some twenty years ago, on VHS I suppose

Along with Commandos (with Van Cleef) this is my favourite italian war movie

I liked it because it’s one of those war movies that concentrate more on character and story than on large scale battle scenes
There is an excellent desert battle scene in the beginning of the movie, tho’
I remember it as very tense, with a well-executed psychological battle between people who must survive in the desert, nearly without water and with a wounded man among them

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That’s the fellah! Great film, but I can only play my vid from the desert bit (final hour of the film) - all the character build-up in civvy life - relationships, childbirthy-stuff, etc. is gone … literally cut out of the tape!

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I’ll see if I can trace a copy somewhere in the world

There’s another one I remember, Il battaglia di El Alamein, I think with Frederic Stafford and Enrico Salerno (that guy from Bandidos)
In that film the Brits are the baddies! (Howzat fora changz?)
I traced a cheap DVD at Amazon.de, but it’s said to be awfull (and only German audio)

But I found some eight exciting minutes on the tube:

By the way: the first comment in Italian is quite interesting: What makes me furious is that if only they had been well-equipped, they would have massacred the English!
More than fifty years after the war, the humiliation is still deeply felt in Italy.

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Hornets´Nest (1970) by Phil Karlson starring Rock Hudson and Sylva Koscina is a quite nice movie IMO. Especially the music by Ennio Morricone is great like most time (one of my reasons to watch Italian movies).
I am not the biggest Rock Hudson fan, but this is an interesting role. He´s the leader of an American commando that wants to operate behind enemy lines and destroy a dam.Everybody gets killed, Hudson survives and is taken to safety by some boys of the resistance.He recruits them and together they try to accomplish to mission.

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Some interesting films mentioned in this post, which I think need to be tracked down :).

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HORNETS NEST 1970 ROCK HUDSON Sylva Koshina

Very well made, exciting War/Romance Film with a very likeable ROCK HUDSON with
his hands full of Sylva Koshina :-* and the war happenings.
I have always LIKED ROCK HUDSON in all his magnificent Westerns, Thrillers, Action
and thought he was heroic, romantic, very talented on screen.
His alleged “sordid” “gay” private life I find hard to believe/sickens me but on screen FAB.

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Any one seen this one ?

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Looks fun but sadly no. Something seems to be missing from the title though. Hell Commando’s what? At least they could’ve had someone proofread their covers :slight_smile:

Is it a Dutch video cover, Ennioo?

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[quote=“AvatarDK, post:29, topic:622”]Looks fun but sadly no. Something seems to be missing from the title though. Hell Commando’s what? At least they could’ve had someone proofread their covers :slight_smile:

Is it a Dutch video cover, Ennioo?[/quote]

It’s a Dutch video cover allright (if you look on the left: ‘vrijbuiter’ is a Dutch word)

The title should have been “Hell Commandos”, so not “-o’s”;
This mistake is easily made by a Dutchman : in Dutch the plural of ‘commando’ is ‘commando’s’

The original title of the movie is Comando al infierno (infierno = hell)

I’ve never seen the movie, but it could be good fun: Rafaella Carrà is a famous and very sexy singer who had an international hit with the song ‘A far l’amore comincia tu’

I think I posted it before, but I don’t know where. Anyway,she’s worth a look:

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[quote=“scherpschutter, post:30, topic:622”]It’s a Dutch video cover allright (if you look on the left: ‘vrijbuiter’ is a Dutch word)

The title should have been “Hell Commandos”, so not “-o’s”;
This mistake is easily made by a Dutchman : in Dutch the plural of ‘commando’ is ‘commando’s’

The original title of the movie is Comando al infierno (infierno = hell)

I’ve never seen the movie, but it could be good fun: Rafaella Carrà is a famous and very sexy singer who had an international hit with the song ‘A far l’amore comincia tu’

I think I posted it before, but I don’t know where. Anyway,she’s worth a look:

- YouTube far i only knew the german version:
Tony Holiday - Tanze Samba mit mir 1977 - YouTube
funny that even in the italian song they sing about liebe, which is not an italian word right?
dance the samba with me, hmmm
you´re hot as a volcano, and tonight i will get burned; superb!

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[quote=“scherpschutter, post:30, topic:622”]It’s a Dutch video cover allright (if you look on the left: ‘vrijbuiter’ is a Dutch word)

The title should have been “Hell Commandos”, so not “-o’s”;
This mistake is easily made by a Dutchman : in Dutch the plural of ‘commando’ is ‘commando’s’[/quote]
Thought as much. Couldn’t quite read the word ‘vrijbuiter’ but it looked Dutch :slight_smile:

Apparently this is another movie that isn’t out on dvd in any form !?

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[quote=“valenciano, post:31, topic:622”]so far i only knew the german version:


funny that even in the italian song they sing about liebe, which is not an italian word right?
dance the samba with me, hmmm
you´re hot as a volcano, and tonight i will get burned; superb![/quote]

She uses the word liebelei, a flirt
The Italian lyrics are so raunchy the song wasn’t accepted on RAI radio at first, but then it became a smash hit from Canada to Greece …
She mentions for instance an empty bed her lover brings her to, and adds that her lover will fill the emptiness (in Italian this ambiguity works better since both words - empty and emptiness - are rendered by the same word, vuoto)

In the refrain she finally sings ‘mi scoppia il cuor’’ (my heart bursts open, or: my heart explodes), but she starts with singin’ ‘scoppia, scoppia mi sco…’, this could be (and was!) interpreted as : burst, burst, fu … (sco… referring to scopare, a common word for making love, if you know what I mean).

Even the title is ambiguous: ‘A far l’amore comincia tu’ could be read as ‘It all begins with making love’ (tu = short for tutto, all, everything), but literally she sings ‘You begin with making love’ (tu = you); moreover, the strange word order, which emphasises ‘tu’, implies that this ‘you’ is only good for one thing …

This was the first and last lesson Italian for today, folks

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Has anyone seen Battle Force by Umberto Lenzi ?

http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/battle-force-umberto-lenzi-p-13512.html

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[quote=“ENNIOO, post:34, topic:622”]Has anyone seen Battle Force by Umberto Lenzi ?

http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/battle-force-umberto-lenzi-p-13512.html[/quote]
Yes I have it on the AWE label, it’s very good, way better than I thought when I ordered it actually.

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TANZE DE SAMBA MIT MIR 1976 TONY HOLIDAY GERMANY Smash HIT No 1

Cover version was :

DO IT DO IT AGAIN (With Love) 1978 RAFFAELLA CARRA ITALY/UK Smash Hit No 10
(A Far L’Amore Comincia Tu)

BOTH versions are catchy, bouncy, high quality melodic TONY HOLIDAY Just Better :o

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Thanks !..think I may be making a purchase soon…

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Here’s what’s in my collection.

The Dirty Two/Five For Hell/Churchill’s Leopards/Heroes In Hell/Commandos/Commando Attack/Warriors Five/The Battle Giants/Battle of the Commandos.

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[quote=“CactusCharlie, post:38, topic:622”]Here’s what’s in my collection.

The Dirty Two/Five For Hell/Churchill’s Leopards/Heroes In Hell/Commandos/Commando Attack/Warriors Five/The Battle Giants/Battle of the Commandos.[/quote]

Is that Commandos DVD widescreen?

I have been looking for a widescreen DVD on the net and couldn’t find one
They were all fullscreen
I have seen a widescreen copy in cinema, some twenty years ago, in Paris; it was a bad copy, full of scratches, but I rememeber that the film looked great

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[quote=“SARTANA DJANGO, post:36, topic:622”]TANZE DE SAMBA MIT MIR 1976 TONY HOLIDAY GERMANY Smash HIT No 1

Cover version was :

DO IT DO IT AGAIN (With Love) 1978 RAFFAELLA CARRA ITALY/UK Smash Hit No 10
(A Far L’Amore Comincia Tu)

BOTH versions are catchy, bouncy, high quality melodic TONY HOLIDAY Just Better :o[/quote]

I’m not going to argue about which version is better, but it would surprise me if the German version were the original one

It’s hard to find conclusive evidence about these things (usually different books and sites contradict each other), but as far as I’ve been able to detect the song was written in by Franco Bacardi; additional writing was done by Daniele Pace, Gianni Boncompagni and Ralph Bernet;
It was apparently written for a tv show, so it’s possible that the Italian and German lyrics were written more or less simultaniously; I also guess that this ‘tv version’ was less raunchy than the lyrics used by Carra (in those days they often wrote different versions for tv-showings and the record release)

Raffaella Carra already released a version in '76; one year later she released a second version, that became the smash hit (I can’t find much info on the differences between the two, I guess the first was the more raunchy one)
All books and sites (in both English and German) I checked say Tony Holiday’s version is from '77,not '76

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[quote=“scherpschutter, post:39, topic:622”]Is that Commandos DVD widescreen?

I have been looking for a widescreen DVD on the net and couldn’t find one
They were all fullscreen
I have seen a widescreen copy in cinema, some twenty years ago, in Paris; it was a bad copy, full of scratches, but I rememeber that the film looked great[/quote]

No , the copy i have is VHS.