Leofwine_draca A lively peplum adventure, directed by Antonio Margheriti and thankfully a lot more appealing than his HERCULES, PRISONER OF EVIL made in the same year. The print under review is the edited US TV print, complete with incredibly catchy "Sons of Hercules" theme tune, which eliminates plenty of plot exposition to concentrate solely on the action, which is fine by me. The various plot elements involve beautiful princesses, a fair bit of exotic dancing, a really annoying "comic relief" mute sidekick who grunts his way through the movie and our hero, Anthar, dressed in what alarmingly appears to be a giant nappy! Genre veteran Kirk Morris sails through the role and enjoys himself beating up extras, causing mass destruction and generally taking on men ten-to-one. The English dubbing turns him into a rather more sadistic character than we usually see, saying the likes of "I'll rip your eyes out!" to an injured enemy soldier! The entertaining finale involves an amazing wall-climbing episode in which aforementioned mute boy uses a row of spears to swing acrobatically up to the top of the battlements. This is quickly forgotten as we're witness to a really bizarre arena fight sequence in which Anthar finds himself up against a rhinoceros, of all things! Although the fight is short it still sticks in the mind. The final battle involves plenty of cool deaths for villains (spearing, crushing by rhinoceros and impalement by portcullis to name but three) and a (literally) smashing hall-of-mirrors showdown which seems to have inspired the climax of a certain ENTER THE DRAGON starring Bruce Lee! Quick snippet of info: watch out for the identity of the assistant director - it's none other than Ruggero Deodato, he of later cannibal-nasty infamy!

MARIO GAUCI I always include a number of "Peplums" in my Easter epic viewing but, so far, I have only met with disappointment despite the credentials of those involved! The English moniker of this one muddles its pedigree by making an Arabian Nights fantasy seem like a typical mythological effort: indeed, leading man Kirk Morris is ostensibly muscle-bound and dubbed Anthar The Invincible (the film's original title) and, frankly, he could well have gone by any other name since his characterization offers nothing at all new to what he was given to do as Maciste, or any other legendary hero, for that matter!The two villains we saw in the same director's THE GOLDEN ARROW (1962) virtually reprise their roles here, which further adds to the lack of novelty on display; even more slapdash is the fact that the protagonist is alternately identified as unfamiliar and a known threat to his adversaries! I guess I should point out that Morris battles a rhinoceros at a later stage in the proceedings, and the chief baddie has a hall of mirrors installed in a room of his castle (or, rather, that of the ruler he killed to usurp his throne). The female lead, then, is a Princess – played by French actress Michele Girardon, who had come down quite a bit from roles in films by Luis Bunuel and Howard Hawks! – who manages to escape his clutches (he being ever so clumsy in his approach to romantic persuasion) and saved from drowning by Morris and his dumb boyish sidekick (whom he simply calls "Mute"!), who naturally take up her cause at the bat of an eyelid…given that, apparently, they have no life to speak of!!

Cristi_Ciopron The old Italian genre movies have the advantage of the fantasy set free, unleashed, unrestrained; on the other hand—there was not much to unleash, to set free. That fantasy itself was rather meager. Formally, those movies were free, daring; on the other hand, their freedom did not have much of a content. The conditions existed; the writers were lacking. Like the surrealism itself, they too sometimes bordered on stupidity. Freedom is a luxury; it advantages only the fittest. But then again ,those were wonderful times, a wonderful epoch, when so many things were filmed …. Some of the old Italian outings seem sensationally fancy, and in its best days the Italian genre cinema (which is quite a vague notion) achieved the best.

django-1 This review is of the US TV print, THE DEVIL OF THE DESERT AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES, which is probably edited. For some reason, a number of the sword-and-sandal films starring Kirk Morris put him in varied settings--Scotland, Atlantis,the Steppes of Russia, a generic "Arabic" setting. This one is set in the latter and does have some nice North African location shooting in a few scenes. It's the usual story of the daughter of nobility whose father is slain by an evil tyrant and who is sold into slavery, only to be saved by an honest, strong, brave man of common origin but renowned among the common people. Morris, who doesn't enter the film for at least ten minutes as the problem is established, is not usually given a lot of pages of dialogue in his films, and that's true here too, but like any stoic hero he doesn't need to say much because his actions speak louder than words and because all the words he speaks are of significance. The director here is Anthony Dawson/Antonio Marghetti, who has done many classics in the Italian Western and Horror fields. Here, he provides many unexpected visuals and keeps the pace moving quickly. The set design is vivid and unusual throughout also. This is an above average peplum film, fortunately in color (many US TV prints of sword and sandal films are B&W versions of films originally made and shown in Europe in color). I expect that someday these films will come to DVD in unedited form, letter boxed, in sparkling transfers, with original credits, such as has been done to Mario Bava horror films and various Italian westerns. But that day isn't here yet, so until then check the internet for VHS copies. If you like the genre, this one is worth seeing for the offbeat setting and the exciting pace. PS, Morris' mute sidekick is usually called Amute, but in one scene he is called, twice, something that sounds like "mosquito." Is that an Italian diminutive term of affection or a character name? Anyone know?