owner, Baldwin (Zehetgruber, acting once again as “Rolf Zehett”), a veteranarian who, when not armed, is always carrying, petting or bottlefeeding some kind of cute animal that steals the scene from everyone and everything. When the container of supposed LSD is stolen from the Embassy safe, a link between the Embassy and The Green Hounds is established, relocating the action to a silo-like structure where our heroes and their help- ers are threatened with engulfment by starving rats, before the action shifts once again to a scenic desert area known as the Valley of a Thousand Hills. There, after a fairly sedate first hour, the film erupts into a furiously-paced chase that involves camels, motorcycles and sliding down towering, labyrinthine sand walls on the seat of one’s pants. Adding to the film’s pleasures is the casting of the Green Hounds themselves, who feature popu- lar German character actor Herbert Fux, known for playing slimy characters in such films as Alfred Vohrer’s THE GORILLA OF SOHO (1968), Michael Armstrong’s MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970) and Jess Franco’s JACK THE RIPPER (1976), and also American bodybuilder Samson Burke, who played the guest title role in THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES (1959) and also the cyclops Polyphemus in the Mario Bava-directed episode of the Dino de Laurentiis miniseries L’Odissea (“The Odyssey,” 1968). DEATH TRIP doesn’t go anywhere near where one hopes an LSD-themed thriller might go in terms of hallucinatory imagery, yet Zehetgruber again delivers a more exciting, amusingly de- mented product than Parolini. On the basis of his two Kommissar X films, he deserves recognition as one of the most eccentric German directors of this period. His pictures are well-crafted but also completely mad; this craziness is reflected not only in Zehetgruber’s tendency to cast himself in over- blown supporting roles, but to always surround himself with animals. Here, he explains the 13th century origins of the Three Green Hounds cult while holding a puppy in a hat. So we have a globe- trotting adventure film about LSD, crime and the drug market that incorporates lots of cute animal scenes before ending with the villains being un- done by an avalanche of melons and our heroes doing a double take in response to a talking don- key! It may sound like a kid’s movie, but Zehetgruber includes some very brief flashes of nudity this time along with the usual prurient hu- mor, and Leyla’s rescue is dependent upon her removing and waving her bra to attract Jo’s atten- tion. The exotic Istanbul scenery, much of it fa- miliar from FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and Jess
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Franco films like VAMPYROS LESBOS, is attrac- tively shot and incorporated into the action, and the climactic chase sequence en route to, and through, the Valley of a Thousand Hills—actu- ally the Fairy Chimneys rock formations in Cappadocia—borders at times on the breath- taking, not least of all Brad Harris’ motorbike ride through the entrance of a cave, a bolluxed stunt which nearly takes his head off for real. The extras include a German trailer (2m 56s), an 85-page Brad Harris filmography and the usual pressbook, filmprogramme and poster gallery features.
KOMMISSAR X: DREI BLAUE PANTHER
“Kommissar X: Three Blue Panthers” aka KILL, PANTHER, KILL 1968, 85m 43s, €32.99, PAL DVD-2
Say what you will about the previous entries in the Kommissar X series; for better or worse, they
emulated the Bond films extremely well in terms of presenting the most exotic cities of the world as everyone’s oyster and encouraging people all over the world to visit what Ian Fleming called “thrilling cities.”
The far-flung exoticism of the earlier entries takes an off-kilter turn with this fifth adventure, which finds our heroes and director Gianfranco Parolini in Canada, of all places—initially Calgary, Alberta for a rodeo festival (where Tom Rowland gets tricked into riding a bucking bronco, then quite intentionally straps himself into the THUNDERBALL jetpack for a longer ride than 007 took) and then Montreal, Quebec, just in time for Expo ’67. What makes the choice of midwestern Canada as a location even stranger is that a good deal of the film was actually shot in and around Rome (not often called upon to stand in for Canadian lo- cales), including the fabled Montegelato Falls made world-famous by Pietro Francisci’s international success HERCULES (Le fatiche di Ercole, 1957). Capt. Tom Rowland is in Calgary assisting In- spector Lefèvre (Erwin Strahl) on a case when Arthur Tracy (Franco Fantasia)—imprisoned four years earlier for stealing $3,000,000 in unrecov- ered jewels—is sprung by his partners Anthony (Siegfried Rauch, returning) and Smokey (Parolini, apparently determined to beat Zehetgruber at his own scene-stealing game) during an inter-prison transfer. Arthur, whose twin brother Robert mar- ried his former girlfriend Elizabeth (Erika Blanc) in the meantime, intends not only to recover his
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