Just finished watching the new Wild East disc of CHURCHILL'S LEOPARDS (aka THE DIRTY DAM BUSTERS), which is a pretty entertaining "gotta blow up the dam", French Resistance and Brit Commandos vs. Evil Nazis flick.
Richard Harrison -- in a twist worthy of a Jean Claude Van Damme flick -- stars as twin brothers (!), one a Nazi officer, the other a British commando. In an effort to cut off the German supply lines and leave them "hamstrung" (mmmm, hamstrung), Churchill himself concocts Operation: Overwatch (or something to that effect) which is designed to drill a hole in the base of the dam, plant some explosive and make it go boom. The surrounding area would be flooded, roads would be destroyed and two Panzer divisions would be forced to eat one another.
Klaus plays the suspicious, chain smoking Captain Holtz who seems to think something is hinky with Lt. Muller right off the bat. Sooner or later you know Klaus is going to get to the bottom of it, but you're not sure how. It's a meaty supporting role for K2 and he gives Holtz more personality beyond the typical evil SS officer with impeccable fashion taste. He has a sense of humor and appreciates the finer things in life. But he's not above taking 20 hostages to sweat a confession out of the townsfolk for the murder of two German soldiers.
In the end it's a race against time as Muller's girlfriend (Helga Line of HORROR EXPRESS, HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB and LORELEI'S GRASP) arrives and is sure to get to the bottom of the deception. Or will she? Other familiar faces include Frank Brana (RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD) as a French Resistance fighter and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (FIGHTING FISTS OF SHANGHAI JOE, CRIMES OF THE BLACK CAT, DEATH SMILED AT MURDER and tons more) as the head of the commando unit.
Good stuff and I'm sure it looks great compared to what was previously available. A couple audio glitches early on but nothing after that.
Though I'd planned to cross over into the new year by watching NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES our chatter about NIGHT OF THE CREEPS has me all a twitter so I've got it up and running now. "The good news is your dates are here. The bad news is, they're dead."
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