Hell Squad

The North African campaign was over by May 1943 not June.

This no-frills account of a squad of GI's, separated from their outfit in the North African campaign during World War 11 peels away the glamor of soldiering and leaves one only with its desperation and misery. Yet, it is not depressing, as it shows how human beings go on in the face of apparent hopelessness. The climax is gripping. Ironically, I came upon the film by accident, since there was an error in the program listing in the paper.

It's another of those short features produced in the late 1950s about WWII dog tired dog soldiers slogging along (here, notionally Tunisia), facing boredom and danger and the occasional German Master Race officer. Burt Topper, who wrote as well as directed, clearly had something in the back of his head that he could get into the script, because there are some moments of clear tension, despite my annoyance at the dead cliches and the blaring and obvious score.

Perhaps it was a matter of the performers being better than the material. As is usual fr an AIP production, the cast is populated by people whose name no one would recognize at the time, people who could be hired for little money. Usually I recognize a name or three, but here they were all strangers to me, most of them performers who have three credits and then silence. Perhaps they went back to the theater and made a living. Perhaps they gave up and went home to run the family business. Hollywood is a magnet that attracts far more good actors than it can use.

Before the studio became known for Beach movies and counter-culture hippie films, American International Pictures was known for angry delinquent and war films. The commonality to all these movies are low budgets and mostly casts of unknowns. "Hell Squad" is just chock full of unfamiliar faces and cheapness.

The story is VERY simple and the cast very, very small. Supposedly these American soldiers are in North Africa during WWII but they are separated from their unit and must make their way back to the front. Along the way, they meet up with all sorts of Germans...and ALL of them are lying scum who either wear American uniforms or make fake radio broadcasts.

So, you've got about a dozen actors in total and almost no script and you run around the California desert playing soldier. There just isn't much to this one and it's awfully dull. The only interesting thing to me is that one of the Germans was played by a man named Curtis Loser. Nice moniker...and rather apt for this film.

Here's one film where the low budget really helped. The anonymity of the cast lends a realistic touch and the lack of frills, plus the desert locations (presumably Southern California) all add up to a minor but enjoyable war flick. Apparently this was supposed to make a star of Wally Campo, and judging from his performance he should have had more work than the dozen or so genre flicks he ended up in.