I have to admit now that I’ve failed. I shall not be watching every franchise ever made (by my squirelly definition of what a franchise is), since not every one of these movies is readily available. I had anticipated breaking this news at some point, but I thought it was going to be for some old Hollywood serials or obscure German comedies, not the Ilsa series. I didn’t think it would break me – at least not in that way. I’ve looked over every seedy part of the Internet I know of, even YouTube, and the best I can do for the remaining two entries is a few clips. Or I could buy a ratty old copy on VHS for $79, and then buy a VCR too. I dunno, maybe one of you guys could propose a solution...
Anyway, I must soldier on, and instead comment on the final Ilsa films based solely on second hand research. I do think this will improve my writing a little, as watching Ilsa movies lowers my IQ.
So, first at bat – Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia (1977)
The series’ original producers had backed out at this point. They were done, having created an initial travesty and its cash-grab sequel. That was already more milk than you’d think this particular cow could give. Enter the great Roger Corman. This brilliant uber-producer was responsible for the vast majority of women in prison films from the past decade, so he and co-producer Ivan Reitman clearly understood the potential value in a property like Ilsa. That’s right, a future Oscar winner and the director of Ghostbusters put together an Ilsa picture.
This film holds the reputation of being the tamest of the series, with apparently the lowest levels of nudity and torture. It seems that the producers, along with director Jean LaFleur, were really interested in using the Ilsa character as a delivery system for Canadian in-jokes. Wait, huh?! I guess because the previous director was Canadian. Alright then, eh?
Of course continuity is not an issue, so all you need to do in order to justify another Ilsa sequel is to define the new socio-political scope of Ilsa’s depravities. And then get Dyanne Thorne back as Ilsa, but that’s not exactly hard to do, it would seem. LaFleur’s movie trades World War II Germany and oil crises Arabia for Cold War Soviet Russia. This seems completely natural, and is actually a far more logical followup to Part 1 than the Middle East. Had the series, god forbid, carried on ad infinitum into the modern day, one can easily picture Ilsa appearing anachronistically in all sorts of reviled dictator states – Hussein, Amin, Trump...Hell, having started with the Nazis, everything must be fair game now!
Okay, the Soviet Union, 1953. The death of Stalin and the rise of Khrushchev. Obviously in this context we will find our friend Ilsa running a gulag, torturing enemies of the state with an iron, um, fist and lesbian cohorts. Actually, it seems the traditional lesbian duo has been retooled somewhat as Ilsa’s heterosexual companions, the ones who entertain Ilsa’s sexual castoffs on a nightly basis. So this movie takes the bold stance of toying with established series formula, which can often be a daring step, but here seems almost as nihilistic as the films themselves.
Another major shakeup in established series dogma is the identity of Ilsa’s current victims – they’re all male! The first film made the awkward decision to focus almost exclusively on female torture, even in a setting where gender equality would make sense. At the time, I commented that male torture was the purview of an entirely separate arm of grindhouse cinema. It seems that for Part 3, the makers have decided to embrace that new subgenre, which is just as well, since Ilsa did not remain in its original Nazisploitation mode beyond the first film anyway. And it makes sense historically that Comrade Ilsa’s subjects would be male, though I doubt that was the reason for this decision. Looking for reason here is like...well, it’s redundant.
The central tortures of this section, and the movie as a whole, apparently involve electroshock therapy, which we’ve already been treated to in this series. According to a reliable source (Wikipedia), this is because Canadians as a people have a preternatural fear of electricity; I cannot for the life of me figure out why this would be, unless they leave live wires dangling around their hockey rinks or...What’s another Canadian stereotype? Whatever. Other features of Ilsa’s gulag lifestyle, I’m told, include nude wrestling and man-eating tigers. I’m sure had I seen the film I would have something to say about all this, but as it is I’d just be making something up.
The gulag setting, so potentially like its concentration camp predecessor, is proving by Ilsa standards to be somewhat underwhelming here – I think. That barely matters, since rumor has it this whole opening gulag section was merely a caveat thrown in by the filmmakers to justify calling this thing an Ilsa film, to connect this to the others. As mentioned, their interest was Canadian navel-gazing, even though they didn’t need Ilsa to do that. So in order to move the plot to Canada, something must be done. Upon learning of Stalin’s death, Ilsa fears she herself might be in pogrom’s way, so she and her loyal Cossacks proceed to murder everyone at Gulag 14 and burn the place to the ground. I suspect this is the closest things come here to the standard women in prison finale rebellion, and we’re something like a third of the way in. Still, one man survives, one Andrei Chikurin (Michel-Rene Labelle).
It is now 25 years later, and all the actors look exactly the same, because who wants an Ilsa movie where the already-mature Dyanne Thorne plays someone who can qualify for AARP. We are in Montreal. Seemingly my hockey rink crack above was not out-of-place, since that’s the joke they actually make here. The Russians are in town because of Canadian hockey. Andrei is now managing the Russian Olympic team, and his first act is to do what any good team manager does – take them to a brothel. Because coincidence dictates storytelling, and because otherwise we wouldn’t have a movie, of course this brothel is run by Ilsa (cue applause). It would seem the brothel also functions as a perfectly adequate means of justifying the standard genre trappings – Ilsa hasn’t quite kicked her torture habit, now enacting it upon local mob bosses. And a brothel easily takes care of the sex part of the exploitation equation.
Ilsa becomes aware of Andrei’s presence, since he doesn’t look a day older. She spies him through close-circuited cameras, this being a Big Brother brothel. Suspecting Andrei is there for revenge and not just due to a plot contrivance, Ilsa has him taken back to her mansion for a series of psychedelic tortures. Not knowing the content of these tortures, it seems the hallucination angle employed is a means of allowing any damn torture concept into place without having to struggle with the strange plot justifications of Part 2. So the filmmakers go and squeeze in a castration scene, as formula dictates, without actually having to castrate any of their characters. This movie doesn’t have the balls to...well, you know. And damn these films! Google now knows I’ve spent a portion of my day researching castration!
Through these means Ilsa learns that Andrei’s greatest fear – to be seduced by Ilsa. Therefore she chooses to seduce him. At this stage it seems that Andrei occupies the same position as our two Americans heroes from before, namely, The Man Who Conquered Ilsa. I guess it must be somewhat brave to assign this traditionally American role to a Communist, though I doubt most viewers consider these films in quite such close proximity as I have. And Andrei has a superpower far more extreme than Wolfe’s non-ejaculation in She Wolf, though it’s also far more common – he cannot achieve erect. Or at the very least he can control his boners, unlike all pubescent boys. It is by this means that Andrei defeats Ilsa sexually. He uses the moment to spit in Ilsa’s face, certainly not the bodily ejection she was hoping for.
And here comes the KGB – the good guys! Through lengthy scenes of plot and espionage that supposedly put those in Harem Keeper to shame, the Commies have noted Andrei’s disappearance and tracked him down to Ilsa’s lair. Cue climactic shootout, which sounds to be not nearly as breast-obsessed as its forebears. Andrei engages Ilsa in a snowmobile chase, defeats her male henchman via impalement (I have no idea what happened to Ilsa’s pair of female companions in any of this). Ilsa is left to perish alone in the vast Canadian wilderness, just like Les Stroud.
I really cannot comment of the quality of this film, obviously. I’m sure it’s not great. As a second sequel, though, it offers something to grab onto. Basically, this film greatly reduces the exploitation elements people come to the Ilsa movies to see, instead serving up a weird Canadian agenda I do not understand. A major handicap to artists hoping to continue a franchise is that they have to stay within certain expectations. This film does not do that, and so it kills off an already-shaky franchise. This is the true end of the Ilsa series, and no other Ilsa films would ever be made.
Well, sorta...
Related posts:
• No. 1 Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975)
• No. 2 Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976)
• No. 4 Ilsa the Wicked Warden (1977)
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