Ilsa, the Wicked Warden

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source: Ilsa, the Wicked Warden

'A notorious sleaze-series and I'm not involved?!?…That simply cannot be', Franco must have thought while watching the previous Ilsa installments. And so he filmed his very own addition to what is perhaps the most infamous exploitation series ever made. Ilsa, portrayed by the blouse-bursting wench Dyanne Thorne, appears any place where vicious, nasty events occur…Nazi experiment camps (still the most shocking film in the series), Mid-Eastern harems and Siberian torturing camps. In Franco's vile fantasies, she runs an American hospital for deranged women. Although that's merely just a cover-up, because in the deepest cellars of this institution political rebels are imprisoned. When a young girl goes undercover to find out what really happened to her supposedly dead sister, she gets institutionalized and discovers that the hospital is a Sodom and Gomorrah of perverted lesbian guards and sexually insane inmates. Masochism, rape and torturing are a daily routine. None of the Ilsa movies were ever great…but at least the first two had several extra values that made them legendary. She Wolf of the SS was nauseating and downright shocking. Harem keeper of the oil sheiks inserted bizarre and absurd humor. Tigress of Siberia and this Wicked Warden have nothing to add, really. An hour and a half of pure perversion and European class-A sleaze. Dyanne Thorne is clearly getting older and her sexual charisma seems to have vanished entirely. She's a redhead now, by the way. Fans of the previous installments might still enjoy this film as well as devoted Thorne fans. All other audiences will simply see this is as a lame variant on the 'Babes behind Bars'-flicks.

Ilsa - The Wicked Warden (USA, German, Swiss, 1977) is the fourth installment in the repellently themed "nazsploitation" Ilsa series that began with Canadian Don Edmond's Ilsa - She Wolf of the SS in 1974. The good thing is that this Franco film does not include any nazis or camps in it, just turkeyish plot in which the Ilsa character Dyanne Thorne runs a hospital that turns out to be, surprisingly, a nasty place in which girls are being tortured and force-showered without the outer world knowing anything about the place! Well credibility has never been Franco's strongest point. The film has practically all the typical and main Franco elements in it. It has very slow parts that are totally unnecessary to the "plot" or narrative, they are just there to make the film run a little longer. It has the director in a brief role, it has at least two prolonged shower scenes and imaginative attempts to show Franco's wife and sensual actress Lina Romay * in front. And naturally it has several scenes of violence and sexual sadism, and since the film was produced by the European trash/sleaze king Erwin C. Dietrich (producer of Franco's Jack the Ripper (1976) and the awful Eine armee gretchen that belongs to the most ridiculous celluloid misusages of the whole cinematic history, directed by the producer himself in 1973), it is nothing but greedy sexploitation for the whole 90 minutes. Another thing that is typical for Franco is that he likes to add some symbolism to his films, as if he really had had something in mind but was unable to, for one reason or another, really deliver the message with the film. I'm talking about the ending that definitely belongs to the most unforgettable endings of the director's colorful filmography and would have worked fine in the more ambitious hands. Now it is just there after 85 minutes of honest exploitation so it is impossible to be taken seriously after the footage that has just been shown. Also, would that world really be any safer or "cleaner" even if the protagonist she-devil was killed? Due to the ending and its potential, this belongs to the more interesting Franco films. Otherwise it is just as boring, slow moving and gratuitous money-taker as most other exploitation films by Franco, Italy or any other region.

Directed by noted shlockmeister, Jess Franco, this unofficial sequel to the Ilsa series proves a worthy addition as it does adhere to the Ilsa formula in many ways, most notably with its star, the voluptuous Dyanne Thorne, so I ain't complaining. This time around, Ilsa heads a South American clinic for sexually depraved women. What little plot there is involves a beautiful woman (Tania Busselier) who goes undercover as a patient in order to investigate her sister's disappearance, but as with all Ilsa movies, the story plays second fiddle to the sleaze. When Ilsa's not inflicting various forms of cruel and unusual punishment or making hidden-camera porno flicks, she likes to unwind with her favorite patient (Lina Romay), who serves as Ilsa's informant, plaything and human pin cushion. Romay is actually quite funny as the brash teacher's pet who always bosses the other patients around ("Wash my poodle!"). Of course, Ilsa must also keep her own superiors happy, as depicted in one hilarious scene where she seduces the federal prison director with her "ample" charms. While Wicked Warden lacks the hunky American hero who usually brings Ilsa to her knees with his sexual prowess, the film's climax, an inmate revolt, is probably the most memorable of the entire series. Without giving anything away, let's just say that in the end, Ilsa gets what's coming to her and the results are hard to swallow.

Three things are certain in life: Taxes, death and the fact that Jess Franco makes horrible films. This was absolutely an abomination. Thats saying something for a making that has made his money by making soft core * cannibal flicks and Ilsa is no different. Man where I do start? Horrible acting, almost no script. Dyanne Thorne is back as Ilsa wearing an incredibly fake wig and she herself doesn't look like shes into it like in the other films. She runs a prison camp and tortures other girls although in this case she now has a lesbian fun toy , a change from the other Ilsa flicks when shes interested in men. The movie doesn't have almost no shock value, and the movie is basically a set of soft * scenes, mostly taking place in the shower, and in Ilsa's "study". The acting is horrendous, during one scene a prisoner gets shock treatment yet her reaction is absolutely pathetic, all she does is roll her eyes in disgust. LMAO. The movie then ends with Franco pathetic trademark a stupid cannibal scenes that is fake and not gory. Franco, is the one the worst wannabee horror directors I've seen. I've seen the comment on him calling him absolute pathetic but after seeing this movie and the one called "White Cannibal Queen", I can now confirm what those people have said about him.

You have Jess Franco directing and Lina Romay starring, is there a more sure guarantee of a high sleaze content? You just can't ask for much more. However, this movie doesn't approach the pure, unadulterated, in your face sleaze of other Franco/Romay movies, although it tries. It tries hard. You have Ilsa, the wicked warden, torturing and tormenting the poor female inmates, although to be sure the torture and torment wasn't very convincing. You get the feeling the actresses might have looked a bit more tormented if Franco had told them they had to take a pay cut. So it goes. You have Lina Romay, hot as molten steel, running around naked as the day she was born and enjoying it as usual. I have to admire a girl who is so completely dedicated to being naked all the time, in every situation. She is just an unabashed exhibitionist, not even requiring the flimsiest of excuses to remove her clothing. She insists on it! She demands it! It's probably in her contract somewhere that she gets to spend at least ninety percent of the runtime of any movie naked. The plot line is the standard Ilsa fare, a wicked woman giving everyone a hard time until she gets her just deserts. Yawn. If you even thought about watching this for the plot then you are in line for a sanity check. This is, as has been said, Class A Euro-Sleaze. Too bad they don't make them like this any more.

I've never understood the Ilsa films. They are set across different parts of the world, different time periods and the ending of certain films suggest that a sequel simply should not have been possible. This one goes by about three or four different names which confuses matters even more. Whats even more confusing is just how little entertainment value there is. I know this is an exploitation flick but the previous two had their moments, this is just bafflingly poor. This is the worst third part of a franchise since Terminator, I mean seriously who thought it'd be a good idea to make that R rated franchise so tame and do cut away deaths? That person needs to be punished with having to watch this Ilsa movie on a loop for 6 continual weeks. That right there is cruel and unusual punishment, but so is this film