Storm Troopers U.S.A.

Filmmaker Norman Senfeld is two for two: this movie plus MAFIA GIRLS both display a naiveté about what constitutes a feature film that is alarming. Even though in the Video Era amateurism is almost placed on a pedestal (and beloved by some segments of the viewing audience), back in 1969 it spelled immediate disaster -who would want to book this level of junk into theaters or put it into a TV syndication package?

Heavily padded with lousy stock footage of WW II, the poorly narrated fiction film styles itself as a "Wake up, America!" type of warning, claiming that the threat of an American Nazi Party is real and imminent here in the good old U.S.A. (of 1969), due to a generation born after the war who have forgotten what the Nazis represented and did. Fortunately, bottom-of-the-barrel Italian filmmakers (and I sure don't mean Visconti) were soon to set this right in the '70s, with their highly educational series of exploitation films on the subject.

Col. von Stissen (very poorly acted by Johnny Violin -sounds like a Michael Keaton comedy) is the head of the local Miami branch of the American Nazis, shown with right-hand gal Major Olga (busty but untalented and unattractive Sherri Allyn) leading a tiny rally of the faithful.

Fortunately for us the FBI has infiltrated the group, but less fortunately the bad guys figure this out and the agent is run over (sort of, the "action" scene is so poorly directed you have to use your entire imagination) by a Nazi henchman's car.

Col. von Stissen has set in motion "Operation 11", a kind of Helter-Skelter concept whereby dissension and terror will be raised, complementing the riots, assassinations and other upheavals that typified the late '60s.

For no obvious reason, the plan is to take over the William Penn hotel in Miami, and hold the vacationers and staff hostage. The FBI is well aware of this plan, but decides to let it go forward in order to find out what the home-grown Nazis have in mind as an encore. This makes little sense, but you quickly don't expect ANYTHING to make sense in this lousy picture, where the narrator insists on calling the British Empire "the English Empire".

Three sailors are at the hotel with busty (and trashy looking) dates, and they double as the house band (inexplicably), though when they play a nonexistent fourth piece (saxophone) wails along magically with them. A real-life platinum blonde singer Nina Raye appears as herself but blissfully her song is edited out of the picture.

A remaining FBI agent Lt. Randolph (top-billed Ed Perri, wearing a particularly lousy rug that looks like it was painted on his skull) is posing as the hotel manager Johnny Romano, and of course will ultimately save the day.

An idiotic subplot involving a higher-up Nazi John Frederick (James Neal) lolling by a swimming pool is literally phoned in. Frederick objects to Operation 11, and orders it to cease, even though everyone has already been kidnapped and held hostage. Major Olga responds by sending her underling Sgt. Decker (Al McKay) to assassinate Frederick, but this sequence is completely botched in terms of locations and logistics, not making any sense. Rarely has a movie required so much sustained (and renewed) suspension of disbelief to merely carry us from scene to scene.

Johnny's defeating the Nazis is completely unbelievable and followed immediately by a continuity-defying scene of everything back to normal, and the crowd back being entertained by Princess Fatima, a belly dancer. Johnny is transferred to a new field office but gets one night off at home, so we can see his new wife (Bonnie Arad) strip, put her nightgown on and service him on the couch with some long-awaited simulated sex.

Senfeld is clearly attempting to make a soft porn film but doesn't know how. There are fleeting moments of girls going topless (Arad in particular) but this is basically a tease-fest, almost as bad as his MAFIA GIRLS production. It demonstrates that mere ineptness is not enough to qualify as low camp.