NOT Available on DVD: ‘Ilsa, Tigress of Siberia’

In 1975, Legendary exploitation producer David Friedman and director Don Edmonds gave us the taboo-busting cult classic ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE SS about a sexy but evil Nazi Commandante who gleefully performs sadistic experiments on (mostly female) prisoners and has a nasty penchant for castrating potential lovers who fail to satisfy her. Ilsa was based in part on an actual person, Ilse Koch, who tortured death camp prisoners and collected skin from those who had tattoos. Dyanne Thorne was a busty red-headed 43 year old former Vegas showgirl who had toiled around in the low-budget sexploitation biz since the mid ‘60s with roles in films like SIN IN THE SUBURBS (1964) and THE SWINGING BARMAIDS (1973). Working as a chauffer driver at the time, Thorne was tapped to portray Ilsa and the rest is exploitation cinema history (reportedly Phyllis Davis of BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and the “VEGA$� TV show was Friedman’s first choice). With her bleached blonde hair, piercing eyes, evil scowl and Marlene Dietrich accent, Thorne made Ilsa a frightening, cruel and ferocious villainess as well as an icon for fans of films depicting bondage and domination (recurring themes in the Ilsa series). Despite its infamous reputation as tasteless debased schlock, ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE SS is actually very well-made entertainment, grim and compelling and, though rated X (rare for a non-porn film in 1975), it was a grindhouse and drive-in hit. Released by Cinepix Productions it was influential as well, setting the standard for the whole Nazisploitiation sub-genre of the late ‘70’s, knockoffs (mostly Italian) such as SS HELL CAMP and LAST ORGY OF THE THIRD REICH that sexualized the holocaust. Ms Thorne quickly reteamed with Friedman and Edmonds the next year for ILSA, HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHIEKS, a worthy sequel that toned down the sadism a bit and added more humor. In 1977 Thorne traveled to Spain to star in Eurotrash legend Jess Franco’s women’s prison opus GRETA THE MAD BUTCHER playing basically the same character (but back to being a redhead). It was retitled ILSA, THE WICKED WARDEN and ILSA, ABSOLUTE POWER for U.S. video release to tie it back to the Ilsa series and these first three Ilsa films are available on DVD in a superb box set put out by Anchor Bay. But there was a fourth Ilsa film, the Canadian-lensed ILSA TIGRESS OF SIBERIA (1978), the final film in the series and the only one NOT available on DVD.

Though Ilsa was eaten by the inmates at the end of ILSA, THE WICKED WARDEN, (she routinely dies at the end of all the Ilsa films but pops up healthy in the sequels) ILSA TIGRESS OF SIBERIA opens in 1953 with our busty heroine running a snowy Siberian Gulag for political prisoners for boss Joseph Stalin. The first half of the film is full of typical cruel Ilsa fun as she tortures and murders men when she’s not humiliating them as submissive sex toys. She dunks a man in a frozen lake, feeds her pet man-eating tiger Sasha, throws javelins through skulls, and referees a jaw-dropping arm wrestling match where the loser’s wrist is pushed onto a running chainsaw (excellent gore effect here!). New prisoner Andrei insults Ilsa when she tries to seduce him so she orders him eaten by Sasha but news of Stalin’s death causes a rebellion and Ilsa has the entire camp torched. Andrei survives and vows revenge on Ilsa for the death of his comrades. The story jumps 25 years later to Canada in 1977 where Andrei is the manager of the visiting Russian Olympic team. After a game, the players visit a disco-like brothel managed by none other than Ilsa (who hasn’t aged a day). Besides running prostitutes, Ilsa has the power to have local gangsters tortured until agreeing to sign over their businesses. Andrei plots his revenge resulting in an action-packed climax involving machine guns, snowmobile chases and a brain-controlling computer.

Canadian Director Jean La Fleur (who had edited David Cronenberg’s RABID and would not direct again) keeps the action moving at a good pace but ILSA TIGRESS OF SIBERIA is a bit schizophrenic and La Fleur would never direct another film. The first half is vintage Ilsa with the pattern and mean-spirited tone established by director Don Edmonds in the first film with ample gore and kinky sex. The contemporary second half jettisons the sadism and plays up the action, perhaps to appeal to a wider audience, but ultimately is less interesting and the stunts and intrigue seem detached from the opening scenes as well as the other Ilsa films. ILSA TIGRESS OF SIBERIA is the weakest of the three “official� films in the series (but considerably better than Franco’s squalid ILSA, THE WICKED WARDEN). Dyanne Thorne is great though, heartless as ever and she even handles the action scenes well. I met Ms Thorne at the Cinema Wasteland convention in Cleveland last year and, paralleling ILSA TIGRESS OF SIBERIA, she looks much the same as she did 30 years earlier! In her first convention appearance in 12 years she claimed that at times she felt like distancing herself from the Ilsa character but there she was at age 76 posing with fans leather-clad and whip in hand (she even brought her Russian Cossack hat from TIGRESS)! Today Dyanne Thorne and her husband Howard Maurer (who had small parts in three of the Ilsa films) run a wedding chapel in Las Vegas where she will, for a price, marry couples wearing her Ilsa nazi uniform ! (she also performs Star Trek weddings having had a role in the second season episode “A Piece of the Action� in 1967).

ILSA TIGRESS OF SIBERIA was not as successful as the other Ilsa films and, even though she’s still alive at the end, stranded in the snowy wasteland, there would be no more Ilsa movies. Cinepix did not market the film well and the U.S. one-sheet (which titles the film simply THE TIGRESS) featured a top-heavy blonde model that wasn’t even Dyanne Thorne! It had a brief VHS release in the early 80’s but is now hard to find and I don’t know why Anchor Bay did not include it in it’s aforementioned Ilsa box set (highly recommended, all three DVD’s feature commentaries with Ms Thorne). For more information on the Ilsa movies, I recommend the book “The Ilsa Chronicles� by Darrin Venticinque and Tristan Thompson published by Midnight Media. ILSA TIGRESS OF SIBERIA is available on-line as a PAL import disc and I highly recommend seeking it out… or else Ilsa will punish you!