User Reviews

I have seen only a few of these Italian war films. I like From Hell to Victory and Eagles Over London. But this film is a lot less enjoyable than the 2 mentioned.

Some of the reviews say Palance plays an Irish officer,but he is Scottish which in not the same thing at all. I am Scottish,his accent i a bit like the janitor from the Simpsons. The film is dubbed into english but still the accents are poor

The film features Spanish small arms instead of Sten guns or Thompsons,it features 1950s American tanks instead of period German tanks.

On a positive note some of the action scenes are good,they have a nice big railway gun,wonder if it was real,it looks real/

I love Jack Palance, I love Italian movies. Only I don't love when someone has to talk in an accent. Irish, Scottish, Hebredian, Welsh, Gaelic who knows the difference. Who cares especially when it is not relevant to the plot. Remember, contrary to popular preconditioned view, because of that stupid song "It's the singer not the song". It is the story that counts. It is the song and not the singer.

'La Legione dei dannati' AKA 'Battle of the Commandos' and 'Legion of the Damned' is one of numerous Second World War films to emerge from Italy during the late 1960s. As the spaghetti western lost vitality, producers financed movies with cowboy themes set in wartime Europe and often made use of locations previously filled by desperadoes and stagecoaches. Exploitationist Umberto Lenzi was one director who jumped on the bandwagon, first making 'Desert Commandos' in 1967. In 1969 came his second war film, this low-budget affair produced by Bruno Bolognesi and Ignacio Gutierrez.

American character actor Jack Palance leads a potboiler that grifts material from several big-budget films, most noticeably 'The Dirty Dozen' and 'The Guns of Navaronne.' Palance stars as Colonel Charley MacPherson, a Scottish commando leader who has returned to Britain after witnessing the deaths of his entire unit in a North African tactical mission. While irate over the handling of his men by British generals, MacPherson is talked into leading a raid off the Normandy coast to destroy mines for incoming D-Day soldiers. It so happens that the coastal area is watched over by Colonel Ackerman (Wolfgang Preiss), whose German unit wiped out MacPherson's on the desert sands.

With his entire team dead, MacPherson is allowed to choose six men needed for the mission. Readily at hand are four insubordinates (à la 'The Dirty Dozen') whom the colonel pulls out of their jail cell. Also tagging along are Captain Burke (Thomas Hunter), an American explosives 'expert,' and Sergeant Habinda (Aldo Sambrell), MacPherson's loyal Indian aide who was the only other person to survive North Africa. The men get their job done, but end up stranded on the coast after a trailing band of commandos is gunned down. Thirsty for revenge against Ackerman, MacPherson forces his unwilling crew to reach the next objective, the destruction of a giant howitzer for use during allied invasions.

'Battle of the Commandos' is considerably better-plotted than Lenzi's other war films, including his 1978 stinker 'The Greatest Battle,' which recycles a great deal of footage used here. The script by a seven-man team that included emerging Dario Argento gives somewhat more weight to character study, although there is little development and each person sings mostly one tune for the entire film. Enough balance is achieved between dialogue and the action scenes to make this film watchable, since the fighting consists only of close-range shootouts between MacPherson's unit and small bands of the German army. These cheaply-budgeted action sets make repeated use of the same extras and props, with poor coordination to boot.

Palance's open-mouthed chutzpah is not enough to carry this film, although his gritty presence is felt at times. Wolfgang Preiss ('A Bridge Too Far') is the better lead as a rational German officer slowly watching his country fall to pieces. Thomas Hunter effectively plays his role as a youthful American who is dependable but would rather be somewhere else. Helmuth Schneider has good moments as Private Schrier, a concentration camp escapee who wouldn't mind getting back at the Nazis. Guido Lollobrigida plays a rogue who changes his ways, while Claudio Undari and Bruno Corazzari leave MacPherson only to head back after realizing their chances of escaping German territory. As usual for Lenzi's war films, there are too many people floating through the story, including several members of the French Resistance and a female hostage (Diana Lorys) used to leak information.

While the script and acting are decent, this movie is hurt by Lenzi's bizarre and often careless directing. The action scenes are hysterically paced and have little or no continuity. Soldiers and gunfire seem to pop out of nowhere and camera angles change on a whim, disorienting the viewer. Lenzi also makes us reach for an aspirin with drastic zooms, close-ups, and dolly swings even more overdone than in films by Michael Winner. The editing by Giese Rohm and uncredited Stanley Frazen is awful throughout. Rohm is (unsurprisingly) not credited for any other film, while Frazen managed to edit the 'Kojak' TV series and 'Friday Foster' during the 1970s. The cinematography by Alejandro Ulloa is nothing to write home about. One pleasant surprise is the music by Marcello Giombini, in a military style that reminds one of Shostakovich.

Known through most of the 1970s for his gialli, Lenzi's efforts in the war genre actually became worse. Footage from 'Battle of the Commandos' was reused in 'The Greatest Battle,' a film with top-shelf actors and limited craftsmanship. By the mid-1980s, Lenzi was out of second chances and had beaten it to Yugoslavia, turning out direct-to-video junk like 'Wartime' and 'Bridge to Hell.' It is quite ironic that Dario Argento, who co-wrote this film, went on to bigger and better things while Lenzi never exceeded this level.

'Battle of the Commandos' is not an easy film to purchase, since it has never been released as a DVD and is rarely available in VHS format. Republic Pictures Home Video distributed a cassette version in the mid-80s, one of the worst VHS presentations that I have ever seen. Besides the horrendous print quality, this version appears to be a straight transfer with little (if any) pan and scan; actors are cropped off the screen entirely, often while speaking. This makes the action scenes an even harder watch and ruins a touching moment at the film's conclusion. The print looks as if discovered in someone's attic, with faint colors, endless grain, and severe artifacts. 'Battle of the Commandos' would certainly look better in a restored widescreen presentation, although looks alone could never make this film 'good.'

* ½ out of 4

Jack Palance plays a British colonel - and is dubbed as such. From then on it is downhill all the way. Weaponry of all sorts completely wrong for the story period. American APCs !! The actual target - a huge rail gun shown firing is patently absurd while the SFX used for its demolition are so crushingly amateurish to insult the intelligence.

So sad to see a cast of actors capable of achieving masterpieces when given scripts and production values to match their talents, have had to stoop to such a level to earn a living.

This European co-production is a perfect example of how a film was ruined by the necessity to finance it following the constraints of percentage co-production budgets. Jack Palance had to be cast in the lead to ensure US / international distributor interest. All the various nationality European cast then fitted in to fulfill the budget percentage requirements for talent.

This spaghetti war movie is colourful and action packed..

It is headed by Jack Palance, and I read that he is supposed to be Irish. Well, you could have fooled me. He, like everyone else, is dubbed and, in his case, they have gone for a light Scottish accent - it sounds very like Gordon Jackson.

Given that Palance's natural voice sounds like iron mating with gravel, I found it profoundly distracting.

I saw this WW2 movie under the title LEGION OF THE DAMNED and was more an a little disappointed with the quality given the pedigree of the cast members and especially director Umberto Lenzi, a man who more often than not made films that were pure entertainment. This one feels just too low budget and too tired to succeed, and the cast of misfit characters (clearly modelled on THE DIRTY DOZEN) are just too unlikeable for the viewer to truly enjoy their presence.

The cast is headlined by the great Jack Palance, but the bad news is that he's been dubbed by a Scottish guy with a completely ridiculous, over the top, and stilted accent, which means that you just can't take him seriously at any point in the film. His men are an entirely undistinguished group apart from Aldo Sambrell's Indian fighter who is an unusual and welcome addition. Wolfgang Preiss and Curd Jurgens play the Nazi officials and really both roles are a walk in the park for the actors.

The story does feature plenty of action which is in the film's favour, but unfortunately it's not very well shot and it is very cheap-looking too. It's only at the climax that things get really exciting with some stand-out moments that come close to iconic, but otherwise this is par for the course, let down by the presentation which really could have been better.