We now return to the pepla of the 1960s, to see the long term fallout of the silent Maciste series. For the movie which started this particular Italian sword-and-sandals craze, 1958’s Hercules, is greatly indebted to the Maciste movies of old. Cabiria particularly inspired Intolerance, which led to The Ten Commandments (both versions), and any other number of serious-minded antiquity-set epics (which all just happened to showcase ripped dudes endlessly flexing). And now, one generation later, the cycle has gone around again and such “Macistean” efforts were popular again. What better than to return to the character who started it all?
So it happened in Italy, that the Maciste character (basically, a generic half-Hercules strongman applicable to any peplum topic) made his triumphant return, ushering in a second prolific franchise. Since 1914, Maciste had grown in Italian stature into a veritable folk legend, despite his purely cinematic origins, meaning this name would have enormous immediate meaning to those homegrown audiences most in love with the Hercules movies.
For all the history behind Maciste, such a name wouldn’t travel well. Hence the U.S., already proven to be a major factor behind the sword-and-sandals’ successes, instead got retitled Maciste efforts, the character rechristened alternatively as Samson, Goliath, Atlas or Colossus. Not that it’d make any noticeable difference, as there’s not much in Maciste himself which distinguishes him from the general horde of muscular beach bullies – Credit even Maciste’s meta-narrative ability to switch settings with the greatest of ease. Hence the premier second generation Maciste, Maciste in the Valley of the Kings, comes to my attention as Son of Samson (aka Samsonson). (At least Maciste retains the name “Maciste.”) There is an unrelated Samson franchise I’ll get to at some stage, for us to presently disregard.
In starting a new peplum series, the greatest way to lend it credence is to hire the genre’s greatest star. With Steve Reeves, the original Hercules, already having moved on to lesser pepla efforts in an ill-advised effort to make a name for himself, we’ll have to settle for the second Hercules, Mark Forest, of The Revenge of Hercules. Second time’s the charm, in both senses, for Forest would attain greater fame and prolificacy as Maciste than he ever would in his one-time Hercules stint. Though his performance remains the same as ever, lest you think Hercules and Maciste might somehow be distinguished.
Lending further Macistean credence is director Carlo Campogalliani, who’d already by 1960 done a goodly number of pepla, such as Fountain of Trevi and Goliath and the Barbarians. He’d immediately go on to jumpstart yet another sword-and-sandals series (Ursus, which we’ll get to in like a few weeks), then vanished from the scene altogether. Still, in this artistically impoverished realm, a Campogalliani is a reasonably impressive “get” – though he’s still no Mario Bava…
Given how loosey-goosey this Maciste concept already is, this franchise can start wherever it damn well pleases. It starts in Egypt. Hercules doesn’t have that much freedom. But it’s all so much surface adornment, for the story remains as ever: A kingdom in peril, masterminded by an evil seductress. Even with this, the peplum is such a regimented genre that any change renders things distinct. And formulaic genres like this work for audiences much like sequels do; concerns about story, character, such complications, all are gone, letting viewers to focus instead upon the more decorative elements.
By such standards, Maciste in the Valley of the Kings is a remarkably impressive peplum. Its massive sets and scenes of extras recall the more ambitious sword-and-sandals epics produced by non-Italian studios. Crediting this as a reboot of the old silent Macistes, there is even a little Cabiria visible here, even if there is nothing on hand which explicitly recalls that silent classic. Nonetheless, Maciste in the Valley of the Kings is no doubt a low budget movie. All the pepla are. Hell, damn well all of Italian cinema is! But these guys can work with those limitations, and make product which feels far lusher.
Think of the non-Italian epics which too sprung up in the wake of The Ten Commandments. One of the grandest, most successful of those is Ben-Hur, whose chariot race is not so much recalled in Maciste in the Valley of the Kings as it is completely plagiarized. That is the best part of Ben-Hur, of this there is no doubt. But here’s the thing. Despite that film’s American origins, the chariot race was a second unit shoot…done by Italians. Rumor has it Sergio Leone, the great Spaghetti Western auteur, directed that sequence!
Leone barely had an impact upon the pepla, having only done The Colossus of Rhodes before reinventing his nation’s major obsession. And he doesn’t have anything personally to do with Maciste in the Valley of the Kings. But much of the rest of Ben-Hur’s second unit did. Oh, and those sets are largely recycled as well, because far be it for Italian genre artists to let a massive, artificial palace set get used but once.
And what they couldn’t accomplish with old, preexisting Ben-Hur sets, they obtained with the actual Egyptian ruins, making the effort seem far mightier than it is. Which is valuable, since the juvenile pleasures of a peplum are rather more niche than a really huge budget movie could risk. And with those freedoms to create questionable entertainment on a large scale, Maciste in the Valley of the Kings has the freedom to bask in an early example of Italian ultra-violence, which is reportedly even grander in the non-English cut.
Enough of that, what of Maciste? Well, the peplum he-man is a type with very little variation – they’re all roided-out, bearded, and mostly clothesless. What Forest lacks in charisma (which is a lot), he substitutes with simple flexing. Got an emotional moment you just cannot act out? Flex! Angry? Flex! Sad? Flex! Sure, this is what the sword-and-sandal is based upon, but such Muscle Beach moments are also where this Maciste seems most anachronistic. Whatever giggles to be gotten come in these moments.
Maciste has come to Egypt from…um, elsewhere. Maybe Judea, though these Italian epics (founded upon a pagan myth – Hercules) are loathe to embrace the Judeo-Christian thing like their American counterparts. And for all the occasional attributions to classical texts, Maciste in the Valley of the Kings refuses to credit “Exodus” or anything else for its story, for as much as it may resemble it. It’s still a story of slaves versus overlords, only now it’s the Egyptians who are the slaves, and the Persians the overlords, because in B.C. the Persians are like ze Germans today – an automatic, acceptable villain when no other suffices.
Despite an Egyptian Pharaoh, somehow the Persians have wrested control of Egypt like so many puppet masters – so a helpful narrator informs us wherever the edit is otherwise vague. Representing these invaders, and fulfilling the film’s MVP role as the evil seductress, is Queen Smedes (Chelo Alonso’s curves). Apart from a few token archers (with whom she murders the original Pharaoh), it seems Smedes’ only claim to power is her sultriness. She hopes to seduce the newly-appointed Pharaoh, Kenamun (Angelo Zanolli), except…except he doesn’t reciprocate. Because he’s in love with a comparatively less sexy peasant named Nofret (Federica Ranchi) – this development, in how it’s communicated, helps to confuse just how this new Pharaoh was been romancing a plebe.
Bless Smedes, she acts quickly before the viewer can question just how tenuous her grasp to the Nile throne is. When Kenamun’s natural hormones fail her, she instead forces upon him the Necklace of Forgetfulness, obtained from the Chest of Plot Convenience. I love how shameless these pepla are in manipulating characters’ emotions, memories, personalities, you name it, all for the sake of narrative necessity. (See also Hercules Unchained.) At least unlike that Hercules entry, Kenamun’s subsequent turn towards evil isn’t played for stagnant dramatics. Instead, it’s just the filmmakers’ way of letting Kenamun act all villainous for the majority of the piece, then still claim at the end that he and all the other Egyptians were just good guys anyway.
Which makes one question Maciste’s motives. First of all, he’s arrived in Egypt for damn well no reason. But when an exposition-happy blind prophet (is there any other kind?) informs him about all today’s tiresome political intrigue, Maciste strives to raise a rebellion of clothed Egyptian peasants and topple the regime. This’ll result in the deaths of many Egyptian soldiers, who are just following Kenamun’s orders, and Kenamun lost all rational faculties under Smedes’ bosoms. Like in The Matrix, lotsa innocent-yet-ignorant sods have to die at our hero’s hand ere all become free. But surely there’s no deeper intent behind Maciste in the Valley of the Kings, not when we can just see a burly dude pose stiffly and kill dudes. With such genre entertainment, any consideration beyond the mere surface jollies isn’t worth, er, considering.
And what genre jollies there are! Getting back to the question of mere “epicness,” Maciste in the Valley of the Kings provides massive scenes of antiquated splendor to rival many a Hollywood production, and without the bloat or pretension which dull such joys. Consider a scene, which for 9/10ths of its existence seems like something straight out of Cleopatra, where slaves are ordered to erect (heh heh!) a ginormous obelisk in Kenamun’s honor. I believe I’ve actually seen this image (below) used in those metaphorical stock footage sex scenes, like in Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear. No doubt, then, that it’s all being lifted up as a stand-in for Kenamun’s own penis.
In proper keeping, then, with the metaphor, Kenamun’s slaves have difficulty getting it up. Along comes Maciste [fanfare!], breaking his brilliant disguise of wearing clothing to lift up the obelisk as it crushes several innocents, and getting it vertical all on his own. Now, the penile subtext here is almost too overt, comparing Maciste’s manhood to Kenamun’s. And here is where this Maciste parts ways with historical fiction like Spartacus, for such a comic bookish celebration of pure, exaggerated strength would never pass muster in those “serious” efforts.
Such feats of strength were the bread-and-butter of the sword-and-sandal, forever treading the line between amazing and simply ridiculous. To go all weird and propose a “cinema verité” motive to pepla, one could say these are staged, fictionalized variations on true “World’s Strongest Man” events. Behold! The man moves a rock! The man lifts a pillar! The man bends steel! The man holds a team of horses in place
So…Maciste undergoes a few set pieces against Kenamun’s soldiers, kills altogether too many of them. He then passes through a dungeon straight out of a “Prince of Persia” video game, or Temple of Doom. And he gets to take a part in that chariot race we knew was coming – And check out the set! These guys could stretch a lira!
Anyway, that last one earns Maciste the attention of Smedes, all Gladiator like. Even though she knows him to be the enemy of all evil, still she invites him to the palace – for Smedes trusts her powers of seduction can best a pure pile of penis like Maciste. She pretty much rejects Kenamun outright at this stage, the portent of that obelisk bit coming to bear. And to ensure Maciste’s sexual complicity, Smedes provides Maciste in the Valley of the Kings with its greatest set piece. Not an action sequence, not a feat of strength, but a belly dance in all its kitschy glory!
Any doubts as to these films’ true motives?
Ignoring plot reasoning, from a meta perspective they’ve now run through just about everything a peplum demands. Everything except for the massive, all-extras climactic battle scene – which Maciste in the Valley of the Kings handles a bit better than most, as it most resembles a proper blockbuster. Apart from the number of guys on view here, there’s not much to separate this staged warfare from most any pre-Braveheart. Guys just sorta smack at each other with props. Occasionally, we are shocked by an uncharacteristic gore effect, as though the Italian horror genre was just itching to be born. Kenamun oh so conveniently loses his necklace, and remembers – Hey, I’m a good guy! And with that little turnaround, Maciste can now hold off from heedlessly slaughtering the soldiers, who’ve also just remembered they are good.
That leaves just Smedes. Like many of her sister seductresses, she refuses to reject her evil even while embracing stupidity. She runs off into the Temple of Doom set, and gets et up by a crocodile. (Possibility for a “Nile” pun ignored.)
Then things end with a heartwarming, Star Wars-esque medal ceremony, and – Oh sweet Anubis, I do believe we’ve found another of George Lucas’ ancestors!
As far as sword-and-sandals epics go (and I’m only talking those of Italian origin here), Maciste in the Valley of the Kings is streets ahead of most. That boils down almost entirely to the lushness and splendor and scale, which fool you into thinking this is somehow a more important film. On the flip side, the other greatest asset is Chelo Alonso, not just for her physical attraction, but for her self-aware approach to the silliness. While Mark Forest is content to be an expressionless, chiseled slab of biology, Alonso plays up the camp inherent in these pepla, which many hadn’t come to embrace yet. And as a franchise starter, Maciste in the Valley of the Kings is certainly good enough to compete with the better Herculeses.
RELATED POSTS
• The Silent Maciste Franchise (1914 - 1927)
• No. 2 Maciste vs. the Headhunters (1960)
• No. 3 Maciste in the Land of the Cyclops (1961)
• No. 6 Maciste, the Strongest Man in the World (1961)
• No. 7 Maciste Against Hercules in the Vale of Woe (1961)
• Nos. 8 - 20 (1962 - 1964)
• No. 21 Maciste vs. the Mongols (1963)
• No. 22 Maciste in Genghis Khan's Hell (1964)
• No. 23 Maciste and the Queen of Samar (1964)
• No. 24 Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus (1964)
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