Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks

Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976)

from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

Thi is one of the very best exploitation movies ever made, and I recommend it wholeheartedly if you like this type of movie. Don't be fooled by the fact that it is a sequel to the dreary cult favorite, "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS". There is no comparison between the two movies.

This one has a big-budget look. I don't know how they managed to get these sets and to design these interiors so lavishly, but they did it. It even has helicopters in it, and not in stock footage, but in scenes filmed especially for the movie. The images are sharp, the colors are clear and vivid.
It has great stunts. Four stars to the stunt co-ordinator, who has a real guy fall off a building right down into the camera, and another guy on fire for many, many seconds.
It has humor. The guy who plays El Sharif is hilariously and intentionally over-the-top decadent, and the funniest thing about the movie is a hilarious Henry Kissinger impersonation. (The good doctor visits the Middle East to negotiate about oil production quotas and, of course, to plant a spy.)
It has Uschi Digard. And a lot of other women, almost always naked.

Oh, there are some negatives, some amateurish touches, as you might expect, but those are minor flaws. It is just plain good ol' fashioned sleazy fun.

IMDB summary: 6.4 out of 10. My colleague's favorite exploitation film, "The Erotic Adventures of Zorro", is a 6.0. "I Like to Play Games", the Citizen Kane of softcore, is a 6.0. "The Lickerish Quartet", the intellectual Seventh Seal of softcore, is 5.9. So Ilsa is way up there in the exploitation pantheon. My favorite, "Wild Things", is a 6.8, but "Wild Things" had a $20 million dollar budget, so I don't know if we can allow it in the competition. Can anyone name a higher-rated exploitation flick?

DVD info from Amazon. Excellent DVD transfer in widescreen. Actually it's not quite widescreen. It's a 1.66 aspect ratio, enhanced for 16x9 screens, but this is still better than 4:3.

It has a funny full-length panel discussion commentary with Dyanne Thorne, the director, and another star, and it's moderated by a comedian! The commentary alone is worth the price of the DVD, but don't buy it from Amazon. They have it priced over 25 bucks, which is too much for this kind of movie. I picked it up in the previously-viewed section at a local retailer for nine bucks.