BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS On Blu-ray From Kino

 

BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS (1969) is considered a "Macaroni War" picture--that is, a film about World War II that was made or produced by Italians and shot in Spain. It stars Jack Palance and it was directed by cult filmmaker Umberto Lenzi. 

Just before the Allied invasion of Normandy, a tempestuous Scottish colonel named Charley MacPherson (Jack Palance) is tasked with secretly landing on the French coast and making a path for other British commandos to follow. MacPherson's bad attitude gets worse when he finds out he has to use a group of misfits for the mission. The dirty half-dozen make it to France and perform their duties, but the British commandos are wiped out before they make it to shore, so MacPherson decides to destroy their intended target--a giant cannon which is transported by rail. What makes the colonel even more eager to take on the assignment is his discovery that a German colonel named Ackerman (Wolfgang Preiss) is in the vicinity--a man MacPherson has tangled with before. 

I've written a few posts on Macaroni War films. They have a lot in common with their Spaghetti Western cousins. They both share many of the same actors and directors, and they both have a tendency to tweak the conventions of the main genres they belong to. BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS is one of the better entries that I've seen of Italian WWII flicks. It moves along at a pretty good clip, and the action scenes are well staged. The movie obviously didn't have a large budget, but Umberto Lenzi made the most of what he had, and the giant railway gun is actually quite impressive. (One of the credited screenwriters is none other than Dario Argento.) Of course the story takes several aspects from the likes of THE DIRTY DOZEN and THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, but it least it doesn't spend a bunch of time on a "Getting to know and train the recruits" sequence. 

Jack Palance made a number of Euro Westerns, and he hammed it up big-time in all of them. Here, he's more determined than outrageous, and his attempt at a Scottish accent is....unique, to say the least. The rest of the cast has plenty of spaghetti Western veterans, including Thomas Hunter, Gerard Herter as the obligatory strutting SS officer, and Aldo Sambrell as MacPherson's right-hand man, a Sergeant from India. (If you think that the fact Sambrell is on the side of the Allies means he'll be able to survive to the final credits.....guess again.) Euro cult star Wolfgang Preiss once again almost steals a film from the bigger stars as Ackerman, a professional German soldier and a man of principle who realizes that the Nazi regime is doomed. Curd Jurgens has a cameo as (what else??) a German general. 

Kino presents BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS uncut in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. It's a fine transfer, although the color looks a bit faded at times. Umberto Lenzi expert Troy Howarth (who is on the audio commentary) states that it's the best version of the film he has ever seen. The dialogue track is the English dub, in which Jack Palance and Curd Jurgens provide their own voices. 

The main extra is the aforementioned new audio commentary, which features Steve Mitchell, Nathaniel Thompson, and Troy Howarth (who has written a book on director Umberto Lenzi). The three men interact well together, and they provide an engaging and informative talk, where they discuss such things as the historical & military aspects of the Macaroni War genre and the use of the zoom lens in Euro cult cinema. 

BATTLE OF THE COMMANDOS doesn't rank among the greatest WWII movies ever made, and it certainly isn't one of the most historically accurate (the Spanish locations look nothing like the area around Normandy), but it is an entertaining action movie that does what it is supposed to do. Kino has given plenty of spaghetti westerns nice treatments on home video, and perhaps they'll be covering other Macaroni War titles in the future.