1983 - WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND, aka THE NEW BARBARIANS

Well then there is this low budget Road Warrior rip off coming from who else, the Italians.  The Italian industry never met a popular American film genre they wouldn't steal from and this film fits their bill.

In the year 2019 after the nuclear apocalypse,  roving bands of drivers are zipping around the countryside killing any human life they can find.  Apparently they are part of a cult who feels it's necessary to purge the earth of the remaining human beings.  Into this situation comes the Mad Max like hero called "One" who takes them on.  "One" is assisted by actor Fred Williamson looking ridiculous with a bow and arrow set, he's called "Nadir."

 

There's lots of stunt work and crazy driving.  Cars blow up, people get beheaded, crushed and run over in very creative ways as befits a low budget and the imagination of the director Enzo Castellari.

 

 Castellari was one of Italy's best filmmakers when it came to stuff like this.  He could make something out of a nothing budget and frequently did.   Castellari was comfortable with thrillers, spaghetti westerns, and war movies, a very versatile guy for the most part.

Written by Tito Carpi and Enzo Castellari, the running time is 91 minutes.

1969 - EAGLES OVER LONDON, is a fascinating Italian World War II film

Crazed World War II film from the Italians.  The film is full of improbable plot situations, lots of action and American actor Van Johnson as a British Field Marshall.

A bunch of German agents have snuck into London right before the Battle of Britain,  The plan is to sabotage England's radar network and catch the Limey's off guard. To the rescue come Van and Frederick Stafford the guy from Hitchcock's Topaz. 

Eagles Over London is a typical Castellari film, good action and stunt work mixed with liberal amounts of cheesy Italian plotting.  For an Italian rip off of a typical American World War II film it's very well done.  The editing on some of the action scenes is fascinating with Castellari using an interesting split screen effect mixing actual war footage with stock footage and stuff he shot for the film.

The film is actually a lot of fun and the mix and match of all the different nationalities in the cast is a signal that none of this is to be taken very seriously.  The actor Frederick Stafford is a good looking guy but as stiff as a board.  Van Johnson doesn't even bother with a British accent, the rest of the cast is the usual bunch of intense and volatile Italian actors.

104 minutes,written by Tito Carpi, Vincenzo Flamini, Jose Luis Martinez Molla, Enzo G. Castellari and Gilles Dumoulin.  That's a lot of writers for this kind of film.

1980 - THE LAST SHARK, fairly outrageous Italian Jaws ripoff

This Jaws ripoff from director Enzo G. Castellari really pissed off Universal studios, they sued the producers of this film and were able to keep it out of American theaters for years.  Times however have changed.

There isn't even any point summarizing the plot since the plot is Jaws.  The two leads are James Franciscus and Vic Morrow with as the Monty Python guys would say "an outrageous Scottish accent," and  of course the usual bunch of Italians pretending to be Americans.

Since this is an Italian redo of Jaws, there are lots of things to enjoy about the film.  When something or someone gets eaten by the shark, they just don't get eaten they explode out of the water.  The obvious stock footage of the shark is actually a couple of different sharks, a great white and a sand tiger shark not that matching the shark footage really matters.  The actual shark that eats the actors is of course the usual phony rubber monster. 

Enzo G. Castellari was a decent action director of Italian genre films, but I have to believe even he probably couldn't figure out how to make this film better than it is.  That said, some of the absurd action scenes are rather entertaining particularly the helicopter fishing for the shark scene that you just know isn't going to end well for the pilot or the passenger on the helicopter. 

Somehow all of these killer shark films have used as their basic idea that the great white shark is some sort of creature possessed by the devil.  My guess is that in real life a shark is just a shark, not some aquatic version of Cujo.

88 minutes

1968 - KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE, title explains it all

Good old Chuck Connors is a Confederate secret agent during the Civil War assigned to steal gold from the Union.  Chuck puts together a team of outlaws and desperadoes to get the job done.  That's all.

Non stop action spaghetti western with pauses to at least change the film in the camera.  The director Enzo G. Castellari should probably have opened an action movie film school to teach young directors how to stage and film fight scenes without any juiced up computer effects. 

With the exception of good old Chuck Connors the rest of the cast appears to be made up of stunt men since Connors is about the only one who has any dialog in the film.  It's fun to see character actor Chuck Connors in a film like this since he really seems to be enjoying himself.

As with all of these Italian westerns Kill Them All And Come Back Alone, looks like it was filmed in Spain on about two locations. 

100 minutes. written by Tito Carpi, Francesco Scardamaglia, Enzo G. Castellari and Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent.