5 per l'inferno (1969)

Director:

Gianfranco Parolini

Writers:

Sergio Garrone (story)
Renato Izzo (writer)

Release Date:

18 January 1969 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

John Garko is a fun-loving leader of a bunch of oddball G.I.s whose mission is to steal the German's...

Cast

Gianni Garko	...	Lt. Glenn Hoffmann (as John Garko)
Klaus Kinski	...	SS Col. Hans Mueller
Aldo Canti	...	Nick Amadori (as Nick Jordan)
Margaret Lee	...	Helga Richter
Sal Borgese	...	Al Siracusa
Luciano Rossi	...	Johnny 'Chicken' White
Samson Burke	...	Sgt. Sam McCarthy (as Sam Burke)
Irio Fantini	...	General Frederich Gerbordstadt

Also Known As:

Five Into Hell
Five for Hell

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 (1970) | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Elios Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Filmstar

Goofs:

Factual errors: At the end of the film when the last German soldier is shooting at Lt. Hoffmen, he fires several continuous shots with a Mauser bolt-action rifle, without moving the bolt after each shot. It would be impossible to fire a bolt-action rifle without moving the bolt after each shot to eject the spent casings.

No, seriously: this isn't the real movie, is it?

Let's see: tap dancing, gymnastics, lousy music, a painful dubbed soundtrack, stilted dialog, ridiculous situations. I'm sorry, I'll have to take the previous reviewer's word for quality action scenes at the end. I stopped watching it at the point I was starting to wish someone would hurl a lead-weighted baseball at my head.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind films with a comedic take on war, nor do I have an objection to fictional story lines based on real wars; many films fit either or both of those criteria and are fine fare.

Neither do I require that a war film be an epic like "Lawrence of Arabia" or have the historic scope (not to mention stellar cast of "The Longest Day", "A Bridge Too Far" or "Midway". Lots of films that fall short of those works are perfectly fine viewing.

"Five for Hell" was just too much for me - or, to be accurate, too little. There's a world of difference between "comedic" and "so awful it ridicules itself", and this one does. I can see little that would make this film worse; only, perhaps, had it been an Ed Woods production, or included gratuitous (and ridiculously anachronistic) scenes with bikini-clad girls it could be so.

If a war-movie equivalent to "Mystery Science Theater 3000" existed, "Five for Hell" would be a prime candidate for inclusion therein. It's not a case of "so bad it's good", it's so bad, it's awful. I can't accept it as a comedy. A bad attempt at comedy is many things, but it isn't funny - and if it ain't funny, it ain't comedy.