Leofwine_draca
THE CUT-THROATS is nothing more than a softcore skin flick masquerading as a WW2 action movie. Obviously indebted to the likes of THE DIRTY DOZEN, this tells of a squad of soldiers battling against the Nazi command, although of course it's more about the women they meet en route. The story begins with a group of women being, shall we say, entertained by the German troops before the Americans show up and slaughter them all. Then it's the turn of the Americans to have some fun, but of course Nazi reinforcements are en route to break up the party.I think it's fair to say that this film's sexploitation elements work far better than the action ones. Although the characters are dressed in uniform there's no real attempt to make the WW2 era come to life. The low rent action is just set in the countryside and in a single building. The Nazi and American characters are indistinguishable aside from their relative uniforms. The film is very low budget with the usual bad editing, worse acting, and action scenes which look very clumsily staged.The sex scenes are better, if you're into that sort of thing. There are nude massages, striptease scenes, and general sexual interludes. The most arresting of these feature the memorable and inimitable Uschi Digard, playing a secretary who quickly divests herself of her clothing in order to have some fun with a Nazi officer and a bottle of red wine. It all gets very heated very quickly, so if that's your sort of thing, then this is the film for you.
Jason Daniel Baker
American commandos ( I guess the producers did not have enough money for a dirty dozen so they instead only have a half dozen) in the closing days of World War II behind enemy lines are assembled for a mission to attempt to take out key members of the German high-command by raiding their isolated stronghold on the outskirts of a small village.They discover their intel was slightly off or at very least left certain things out. The most obvious is that it turns out to be not a place of real strategic interest but rather the favourite brothel of several Wehrmacht generals and once inside the Yanks find a dozen young uber-frauleins trained in all aspects of the Kama Sutra and some things that aren't in it.Momentarily distracted by the charms of the lovely ladies the men on the mission are not around to see their commanding officer Captain Kohler interrogate the madam to find what he is really looking for i.e. jewels stashed somewhere in the headquarters/brothel.The war abruptly ends during the party the guys are having but they don't know it and soon they are back on the warpath. They are just in time to interrupt and massacre a group of celebrating German soldiers who are headed for the brothel. One of the Germans escapes, gets to the brothel and arms the prostitutes who then train their guns on their former American tricks.I have never been so confused at the beginning of a movie and I'm sure plenty of people going to see this grind-house special wondered if they had wandered into the wrong theater during the opening titles.I, myself wondered if the video store where I got this had mistaken an old western with a similar title to the flick in question and put it in the wrong box as the opening titles are clearly meant for a western with a western theme song called the ballad of Jimmy Johnson and a picture of a cowpoke on the range.The obscenely misleading opening titles sequence certainly does belong in another movie. I just wonder how it got into this one. No reason that I can think of makes the slightest sense. I mean, was this meant to be some kind of an elaborate practical joke? We do see a character named Jimmy Johnson (John Keith), a commando with a cowboy hat practising lariat roping in the forest but he is killed almost immediately. His sergeant Joe Tackney (Jay Scott, the actor not the film critic) abruptly tells him and us that he is not on the range but in World War II Germany. Weird! Then there is the strong sexual content which might have garnered it an X-rating in 1969 when it was made. I wonder if those that rated it R actually watched the whole movie. For 2009 it would get an R rating but for 1969 the rating probably should have been X by the standards of the time.Nothing on the VHS box I got this film indicates any of the racier content. It just has a bunch of actors I had never heard of and a picture of a typical world war two action movie on the cover. I thought I was getting a bargain but little did I know how much of a bargain. This is a cult hit grind-house title and has been packaged under different names over the years including She Devils of the SS, SS Cutthroats and the video title Cut-Throat Kommandoss under which I found it.The alternate title She Devils of the SS is clearly meant to cultivate a kind of "il sadiconazista" (a distasteful yet strangely popular cinema sub-genre looked down upon even more than pornography) in spite of the fact this film pre-dates those Nazi sexploitation films of the 1970s. Thus the different title was likely to have been formulated some time after films like Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS (1977).Throw in B-movie action and scenes heavy on visuals but light on subtext and what you have here sorely lacks substance. The production team attempted to transferring the premise of 1960s World War II impossible mission movie like The Dirty Dozen or The Devil's Brigade and inject aspects of an exploitation shocker for drive-ins.The Russ Meyer school of screen casting was apparently used here and we have several pornographic and sexploitation stars appearing in this film in various roles.Notes: Michael Pataki who appeared in a lot of bizarre indie productions is in this uncredited as the German soldier at the beginning who kills Jimmy Johnson.
Comeuppance Reviews
Set towards the end of World War II, The Cut-Throats is the tale of Captain Kohler, who, despite his name, is actually an American Captain. He is in command of a rag-tag team of misfits, wouldn't ya know. Apparently these dudes are known as "The Cut-Throats" because of their ruthless determination to finish their missions at all costs. Ostensibly, their objective this time is to capture some valuable documents and plans from the Nazis. But the Captain really wants to steal some jewels originally stolen by said Nazis. However, all the men seem to get highly distracted by all the beautiful German women. This causes further complications, but who will come out unscathed from all the sex and violence? And does it even really matter? Depending on your definition of "action", this would certainly qualify, but more in the "eee-rrr, eee-rrr" (squeaking bedsprings) sense of the word. The WWII setting, despite a couple of shootouts and a lackluster, if prerequisite, throat-cut, is really more of a backdrop for a softcore porn romp. It really could have been set in any historical time period as a pretext for nudity and sex scenes, but perhaps director John Hayes, who is pretty well-known in the exploitation world, especially after being thoroughly profiled in Stephen Thrower's excellent book Nightmare USA, wanted the most sordid and icky setting he could think of, because he was targeting the "raincoat" (i.e., perverted) crowd. But still, this is on the relatively tame end of the "Nazisploitation" subgenre. In the American sweepstakes, Love Camp 7 (1969), released the same year (what a proud year it was), has it beat.We considered not reviewing this one, but we figured, if there was a movie released to video stores with the title "The Cut-Throats", we should at least tell people what it is. And that's what it is. The exploitation team of Hayes-Henning Schellerup-David Chase churned out a low-budget sex drama that will be familiar in style to anyone who watches Something Weird-released titles. It even features two performers legendary in that regard: Uschi Digard (perfectly cast as a Nazi secretary) and Sandy Carey. Perhaps the only people that should bother to track this movie down would be fans of those two actresses. Otherwise, there's not a ton to recommend going out of your way for, really. The production values are so low, it makes Hogan's Heroes look like Schindler's List (1994).So even though the main guy's name is Kohler, it sounds like everyone's calling him "cola", and the end bit has the classic scene where the bad guy says the good guy's name a million times as they search for a final face-off. Director Hayes was no stranger to the WWII drama, having made Shell Shock (1964) a few years earlier. I've actually seen that, because it was released on the great Paragon label, and I endeavor to see anything they've released. From what I remember, that was not nearly as salacious as this. But The Cut-Throats does have an original song, "The Ballad of Jimmy Johnson", which, despite what you might think, isn't about those late-night Extenze commercials. Or maybe that is what you think. It might make sense after all.Released, appropriately, on All-American Video, The Cut-Throats more than likely won't mean much to die-hard action fans, but fans of 60's sexploitation may find it worthwhile, even though it is somewhat disposable.
