BY LEE PFEIFFER

One of the more enjoyable aspects of the Cinema Retro experience is that we continue to get inundated with review copies of niche market DVD and Blu-ray titles pertaining to films we've never heard of.  Many of these come from Vinegar Syndrome (so-called for the nefarious affliction that attaches itself to old reels of film if they are not stored correctly.) The company has earned kudos for not only rescuing obscure titles from oblivion but releasing them in remastered versions that often include bonus extras. Much of the company's product line consists of vintage hardcore porn from the 1960s-1980s but Vinegar Syndrome also releases bizarre exploitation films from this era as well. Case in point: "The Cut-Throats", a 1969 WWII opus that is aptly described on the DVD sleeve as a cross between Nazisloitation and sexploitation genres. What is Nazisploitation? Well, it's a sordid sub-genre of low-budget film-making that took off in the 1970s and had a limited, but profitable run over the next decade. The subject matter was particularly distasteful: it involved the sexual torture and exploitation of female prisoners and concentration camp inmates as a device for stimulation. (Think "The Night Porter" without the redeeming factors.) Perhaps the most notorious of the Nazisploitation films was the infamous "Ilsa: She Wolf of the S.S." , a twisted and sickening exercise in cinematic offensiveness that should result in your crossing anyone you know who enjoyed it off your list of house guests (click here for review). "The Cut-Throats" is not a Nazisploitation film in that regard. Yes, there are women who are constantly groped but in this case the females are willing and mostly prone to doing some groping themselves. The movie was directed by one John Hayes, who apparently has a cult following for his Ed Wood-like ability to see his dream projects through despite a lack of funding or resources. This admirable quality is on display in "The Cut-Throats" from the very first frames. 

The film opens on a bizarre note: a painted backdrop of a cowboy over which we hear someone warbling an old-fashioned western song. (The score is by Jamie Mendoza-Nava, who went on to compose music for other more notable "B" movies.) At first I thought I had accidentally put on some old John Ford film with the Sons of the Pioneers singing over the opening credits. Hayes's decision to open the movie with this song never makes sense in the course of what follows beyond a brief opening scene of a G.I. using a lasso. We are then introduced to the no-name cast as we see an American colonel recruit a handful of men to accompany him on a dangerous mission to infiltrate a remote German outpost and capture important documents and battle plans. What the G.I.s don't realize is that they are being duped into helping him secure possession of a chest of priceless jewels that is being hidden inside the German HQ. When the men infiltrate the compound, they quickly dispatch the German soldiers, only to find that the place is actually a bordello. The sexy females on site quickly switch allegiance and put on a bizarre stage performance consisting of singing and dancing in costume(!) Things heat up pretty quickly from that point with the G.I.s understandably lowering their resistance and bedding the young women. In one of the film's few attempts to provide some outright humor, one G.I. of German ancestry finds he is sexually stimulated by making love on a bed draped in Swastika sheets while listening to records of Hitler's speeches. Once the corrupt colonel intimidates a prostitute into showing him the hidden treasure, he considers his own men to be expendable. He uses a skirmish with a passing German motorcade as a cover to murder his own men. The film's climax finds him going mano-a-mano with a surviving German colonel as they duel over who gets possession of the jewels. (Ironically, the plot device of corrupt Americans and corrupt German soldiers vying for a fortune in stolen treasure bares a similarity to the finale of "Kelly's Heroes", which was produced the same year.)

"The Cut-Throats" is such a mess that it boggles the mind to imagine that even drive-ins or grindhouse cinemas would have shown it back in the day. However, the sexual revolution in film was a new phenomenon so any outlet horny male viewers had to ogle naked women on screen was probably assured of some financial success. The movie was clearly not made for the Noel Coward crowd. The film has an abundance of guilty pleasures, not the least of which is the fact that the film is set in "Germany". I use quotation marks because it appears this is a Germany from an alternate dimension, unless in my travels I somehow missed the nation's desert areas, where the action takes place. Then we have the main location, the German military compound which is clearly a modern housing unit that is either being constructed or deconstructed. With  the house boasting a modern American facade and an empty in-ground swimming pool, one is tempted to suspect that director Hayes simply appropriated an abandoned property for the few days it probably took to film this epic. The premise is like staging a WWII action film on the same sets where "Leave It To Beaver" was shot. The editing process looks like it was achieved with a chainsaw, with abrupt cuts in abundance. There is virtually no character development beyond the most simplistic characteristics afforded the principals. Hayes did manage to find the budget for some period G.I. uniforms and weapons, as well as few German WWII-era vehicles (though one of them seems to be adorned with the Afrika Corps symbol even though the fighting is supposed to be taking place in Germany.) For cult movie purists, about the only recognizable face....well, not exactly face....I became aware of is that of Uschi Digard, whose legendary assets figure into a ludicrous sequence in which she plays the secretary to the German colonel. Upon hearing that the war is officially over, she doffs her uniform and seduces the German's young adjutant by going starkers and serving him a bottle of wine in a unique manner- by first pouring it over her trademark natural assets. The scene is representative of the entire goofy atmosphere of the production. The sex scenes feature full female nudity but never go into hardcore territory. A somewhat kinky aspect involves a scene in which two G.I's are engaging in a threesome with one of the prostitutes. One of the G.I.'s gets so carried away that he begins to caress his friend. Seeing gay sex on screen, even if played for laughs, was rather groundbreaking for 1969.  Another amusing aspect of the film is the fact that some of the G.I.s and German soldiers sport hair styles that make them look like they were auditioning for The Grateful Dead. 

"The Cut-Throats" will appeal only to those dedicated retro movie lovers who revel in "D" level (or in this case "double D" level) obscurities such as this. I personally enjoyed watching this train wreck of an indie film and have some grudging respect for the people involved. Back in the pre-video camera era, it was an expensive and cumbersome task to bring even a slight venture like this to reality. The Vinegar Syndrome transfer is excellent on all levels. The packaging features what I presume is the original one-sheet movie poster art which is appropriately awful. There is also an original trailer that features a narrator who seems to be doing a poor Orson Welles imitation in relating the action as though he were the voice of God. A selection of still photos are also included but they are censored with bikini tops drawn on the women so that they could be displayed in neighborhood theaters.

"The Cut-Throats" DVD is limited to only 1,500 copies.  

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