Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Hell's Bloody Devils (1970)

aka Operation M, aka The Fakers, aka Nightmare in Blood, aka Smashing the Crime Syndicate, aka The Swastika Savages

How bad is it? Okay spy film gets messed up with tacked on plot(s).
Should you see it? A mild yes - after you've seen Satan's Sadists.

Al Adamson's horror films are among the worst ever made, but his westerns, blaxploitation and biker films are sometimes quite watchable. This one started as a fairly standard - even competent - film about a Nazi who has plates for printing out American $20 bills and the FBI's attempt to stop him. Then director Al Adamson decided to splice in footage of bikers (perhaps from a different planned film) and then it has Mafia connections and the plot spirals out of control. The film quality also varies enormously, as the great Laszlo Kovacs filmed some of it and hacks did the rest. The soundtrack is by Nelson Riddle and is quite good. Character's hair and clothes change in mid-scene, there's an exploding grenade pen and karate chops to the neck, shots of a dolphin show and of Hitler are spliced in, Col. Harland Sanders makes a cameo (!), and John Carradine and twins you might recognize from a Star Trek episode have a scene in a pet shop. Broderick Crawford gets top billing, but does most of his lines seated at a desk. A Playboy Playmate from 1967 also has a role, as do Scott Brady and Kent Taylor. It's complete nonsense, but you never know what's coming next.

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