A segue between the Italian Gothic Horror and Giallo genres were the popular film versions of the Italian fumetti comic books. One of the first anti-hero's of this genre was Kriminal: A masked villain who dresses in a skeleton costume to accomplish his fiendish plans. Umberto Lenzi directed the first KRIMINAL film with Glenn Saxson starring as Kriminal. Kriminal is set to be hanged after he's accused of stealing the Crown Jewels. Right before the ultimate moment for Kriminal the rope breaks and he escapes! Soon Chief Inspector Milton of Scotland Yard receives a package containing the Crown Jewels and a nice little note from Kriminal attempting to clear his name of the wrong doing. Off Kriminal goes on another adventure that takes him around the world while being pursued by Inspector Milton always one step behind. Along the way he encounters dangerous situations and plenty of beautiful women. Directed with style by Umberto Lenzi KRIMINAL is a must for fans of Mario Bava's DANGER: DIABOLIK. Also stars Helga Line and Andrea Bosic. Followed by the sequel IL MARCHIO DI KRIMINAL.

In 17th century Spain, the evil, corrupt Don Luis intends to marry his ward, Carmencita, to his stepson, Don Diego. A peasant revolt, fuelled by a plague, complicates matters, as does the arrival of a Masked Avenger.

Charming, affluent--with his father's money--and self-assured, a frivolous son who can have any woman he desires falls head over heels for a beautiful Italian student; however, she is a hard nut to crack. Will he manage to impress her?

Caterina finds out that her husband Peter Tzar of Russia, is plotting to kill her. She sets Count Orlov free from prison, Peter's sworn enemy, becomes empress of Russia and leads the Cossacks army against him.

Tarzan helps the Amazons defeat two gangsters who wished to take over a sacred gold treasure from the women's tribe. There are extensive views of the Central America jungle, and several tough battles between the young Amazons and the evil pirates.

John Slade is hired to rescue a journalist named Frank Morris from a Sandinista prison in Nicaragua. He teams with Marta, a local woman, to carry out this mission, but then he's captured, tortured, and forced to deal with the fact that he's been betrayed.

Three enemy agents lead a government security man on a perilous trail as the hunter becomes the hunted.

A group of unlikely companions receive a radio call leading to a deserted house with a grisly past.

A handful of young geologists are unlucky enough to be forced to stay at a rundown hotel in the middle of nowhere. What they don't know is that the hotel has been abandoned for twenty years because the owner of the hotel had killed his family and all the guests two decades ago. Strange things begin to happen, and suddenly murders are committed...

A man discharged from the hospital after suffering a nervous breakdown is taken to a remote Italian villa by his strangely-behaving wife. But he has strong premonitions that the house is possessed by some force of witchcraft, which he has been experiencing in his recurring nightmare.

A cop recruits a criminal and his cohorts to help track down a violent crime lord who has kidnapped the ill daughter of a rich family.

A vengeful criminal targets the inspector who put him away, but the inspector survives and fakes his death. Ignoring orders to flee, he sets out to bring the fugitive back to justice.

Somewhere in Eastern Europe during WW II. The Nazis have captured a Swedish scientist, whom they want to create weapons of mass-destruction for them, and then a group of local rebels will have to free him from the Nazis before they run out of time. To help them with this task, they have sought the aid of a couple of American pilots

Salvatore "Toto" Cangemi(Antonio Sabato) is a sicilian who has made it big in Milan as a crime boss, his area being prostitution. He is approached by a French crime boss know as "Le Capitaine" he wants to go into business with Toto using his hookers to sell his drugs, only problem is the French aren't giving Toto much of an option. He decides against it and this leads to a big gang war, with tit for tat killings and Toto's hooker being beaten and kidnapped. Toto's second in command Lino Carruzzi, proposes getting his American crime boss uncle "Billy Barone" involved, Toto has little option but to agree in order to save his business. Highly un pc film, that denigrates women all over the place, promotes racial stereotypes and its also homophobic, despite this its an entertaining ride, there's even time for Toto to have some liaisons with the mysterious Jasmine (….but underused Marisa Mell). The violence is as you'd expect with Lenzi quite violent with breast slashings galore and even some genital electrocution…nice! Carlo Rustichelli's jazzy score is nice but a little overused.

Three American college students, Dick, his sister Jessica, and her British boyfriend Kevin, are traveling through Brazil on vacation when Dick, after attending a bizarre voodoo ceremony, develops strange powers. When their jeep breaks down near a small plantation in the jungle outside Rio, the site of a former slave rebellion 150 years ago, Dick uses his powers to raise the dead of six executed Negro slaves whom target the college kids and the residents of the plantation to seek revenge for their deaths

Maurizio Merli and Tomas Milian star in probably the most typical, yet completely enjoyable Italian crime movie by Umberto Lenzi. With a blazing soundtrack by Franco Micalizzi and some exciting camerawork by Federico Zanni, this film is fast-paced and furious although the narrative makes relatively little sense. This reminds me of THE RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS, a film Dardano Sacchetti also penned, which was completely fun and enjoyable although it didn't make any sense whatsoever. The best scenes in this movie have to be the extended car chases. Milian hijacks an ambulence and kills all the people on board for no reason. When it crashes in a crowded flea market, Milian jumps out of the ambulence and just starts randomly firing his sub-machine gun into the crowd to create enough confusion to get away. Another great scene has a gang of upper-class teenagers led by the baby-faced Stefano Patrizi who get bored of nightclubbing and proceed to rape a girl and beat up her boyfriend in a vacant lot. Patrizi is wholely unsympathetic as he punches the boyfriend in the gut repeatedly and knees him in the face, then making weird gestures with a nearby piece of wood. Merli later pops by their nightclub and smashes Patrizi's face right through a pinball machine and then simultaneously beats the tar out of the six or so members of the gang! This film comes fast and furious. Good performances all around by a veteran cast (with Arthur Kennedy, Ivan Rassimov, and Luciano Pigozzi along for the ride). It's not the most coherent of Lenzi's works, but it's definitely a genre classic. imdb comment

Most enjoyable outing from Mr Lenzi and whilst giallo-esquire is really quite a mixed bag. Starting off as a bit of a hippy drippy affair with a young uninhibited couple using their bodies and their guile to get a free holiday, this turns into something much darker. There is real suspense including a splendid Hitchcockian scene in an aviary, lots of nudity and some pretty nasty moments. Irene Papas ( 'Zorba the Greek' and 'Don't Torture a Duckling') lends considerable gravitas with her impressive performance as the mature woman with something of a problem to sort out. Ray Lovelock is appealing as the handsome young man who likes fast cars and faster women but it is the lovely 16 year old Ornella Muti who is always catching the eye. Apparently the almost too perfect nude shots are of a body double but we still get plenty of up the shorts shots as she bends obligingly forward. All three are a great asset and with a decent script and Lenzi's constant inventiveness, this is a fine piece of exploitation cinema.

Sick young man drives around in his daddy's camper, looking for lone stray females to kidnap, torture, rape, and murder

The story is fresh and original, and presented with unique twists from beginning to end. Five German soldiers are parachuted into North Africa, and will trek to Casablanca to assassinate a conference of Churchill, Roosevelt and DeGaulle. Lenzi's film is a true example of character-driven drama at its best. Ken Clark is Captain Schoeller, leader of the unit, and he's never less than totally convincing as a die-hard advocate of Hitler and Nazism. Horst Frank ("Thunder from the West") plays Lt. Wolf with gusto and conviction. Wolf's mother is American and his best friend is a Jew, so he and Schoeller don't see eye-to-eye. He and Schoeller clash over opposing ideals several times. Despite their dissension, both are dedicated soldiers who have a job to get done, and grudgingly work together to accomplish the mission. Lenzi never strays far from this central conflict of ideals, always keeping his message clearly in focus. The supporting cast of familiar European actors is excellent all-around. Carlo Hintermann, Hardy Reychelt and Howard Ross round out the German team. Hintermann makes the most of his little role as a tough, dedicated German Sergeant, a career soldier who'll do what he's told when he's told, no questions asked. Jeanne Valerie and Fabienne Dali are two female characters, whose motives are never clearly defined until the film's third act – and that's when you realize whose side each is really on. Gianni Rizzo has a few brief scenes as a French informer, working with the Germans, and gets to do blast away at American soldiers with a machinegun in one of the film's nail-biting action scenes. Be sure to watch for Tom Felleghy ("The Greatest Battle"), John Stacy ("Battle of the Commandos"), and Franco Fantasia ("Adios, Sabata") in small, yet key roles as Allied officers. Though the action-packed footage is scant, what's here is brilliantly edited and directed. The third act is tense and fast-paced, as the German "heroes" dodge bullets across rooftops and duck through alleyways as American MPs are in hot pursuit. The final infiltration of Churchill's banqueting hall is excellently set up, with frustratingly deliberate pacing, which will leave you on the edge of your seat. This climax ends abruptly with a great surprise, causing your jaw to drop as you wonder "What just happened…?" Two aspects of film-making that Lenzi and his crew seem to emphasize are the sets and landscapes. There is not one shot in this movie that looks out of place. When the German officers talk in headquarters, the interior looks like an office in a German headquarters. The film is set in the desert, and there are constant wide shots as actors speak and walk which reveal that these scenes were actually shot in the vast Egyptian sand dunes. The oasis of Kuffran looks especially bustling, and the essence of the atmosphere of Casablanca during wartime is superbly captured. During this time period, many directors fell back on shabby interiors and shot in outdoor locations which looked completely wrong. For example, "Commando Attack", also shot in 1967, was lensed in Spain and exteriors were passed off as "southern France", yet it's clearly visible the action was not occurring in the French countryside. Finally, there are a number of other little details which contribute to this film's success: fine editing and camera-work give this movie a very professional look and feel; it always looks professional. Lenzi is just starting to develop his style, and his signature close-ups are used in moderation, but mean all the more when they are used. There are some great crane shots and wide shots used to establish the scope of the sets, most notably in the scenes set in Casablanca. This is definitely a great film, with some strongly developed internal conflicts and fleshed-out characters. The quality of Lenzi's films would degenerate as the years passed, but "Desert Commando" is easily one of the best war films to come out of 1967, ranking right up there with "The Dirty Dozen".