Films Concorde, 1978
starring: Bo Svenson, Fred Williamson, Peter Hooten and Ian Bannen
directed by: Enzo Castellari

the plot: France, 1944—a group of American soldiers about to be court-martialed are loaded onto a truck and shipped off to their final fate. Among this mixed bag of misfits is Canfield (Williamson), a black private who still faces racism while on the battlefield; Tony (Hooten), a lecherous, shifty, enlisted man who immediately rubs Canfield the wrong way; and Lt. Yaeger (Svenson), an insubordinate Air Force pilot who’s broken the rules one too many times. When their convoy is ambushed by a squad of Nazis, the would-be prisoners escape and set out for the Swiss border. Yaeger and his men may be criminals and malcontents, but they still want to kick Nazi ass, and soon enough, Col. Buckner (Bannen) ropes the men into completing a secret mission behind enemy lines. Their target: a train carrying a newly developed V-2 rocket and a cadre of German officers. But the Nazis have a surprise of their own.

why it’s good: “Inglorious Bastards” carries the tagline “Whatever the Dirty Dozen did, they do it dirtier!” It’s a smart way of clarifying immediately that yes, “Bastards” is a re-tread of “The Dirty Dozen,” “Kelly’s Heroes” and countless other rogue-soldiers-on-a-mission in World War II flicks. But “Bastards” takes things up a notch, and Enzo Castellari packs more gunfights, explosions, stabbings and other combat-related mayhem into 99 minutes than may have occurred on an average day on the European front. It’s cheap and a little cheesy, but “Bastards” is also epic and awesome (for a prime example of this dynamic, just check out the opening credits, with a surging score accompanied by some stylized animation of explosions and soldiers). The film’s ambition is never undercut by considerations for budget and other obstacles. At the head of all this carnage are B-movie stalwarts Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson, here representing two distinct styles of bad-assery. Svenson is a cool, stoic, square-jawed hero who easily leads his gang into battle. Meanwhile, Williamson chomps on cigars, tosses off one-liners and kills a metric ton of Nazis, pausing only to slap down racist cracks from his squad-mates. As long as the bullets fly, “Bastards” is exciting, but the movie lags in the middle when the Bastards meet up with the resistance and the movie slows down to set up the climax. It’s all worth it, though—Castellari stages a fantastic battle for the film’s final 30 minutes, with half the Bastards infiltrating a Nazi train while the rest of the men and their resistance friends secure a train station. “Bastards” may be a bastardized version of other flicks, but it stands on its own.

why you should own it: “Inglorious Bastards” received some glorious treatment from Severin in 2008 with a three-disc special edition featuring a fully restored version of the film, interviews with Castellari, Williamson, Svenson and others, a soundtrack CD and a conversation between Castellari and Quentin Tarantino.