Hercules, No. 19 - Hercules, the Avenger (1965)

Though this post is primarily a consideration of Hercules the Avenger (1965), let it stand as an epitaph for the entire defunct Italian sword-and-sandals craze.

What leads to the death of a franchise (or a genre)? One may usually cite related notions like audience disinterest and reduced profitability. For Italian pepla, these movies (be they Herculeses, Macistes, Ursi or mere Atlases) were so ridiculously cheap, profitability was mostly guaranteed, no matter how niche they became. In response, the marketplace was submerged in bargain basement bodybuilder bonanzas boasting an intense misinterpretation of ancient times, a “mythological” without the “logical.” Such rancid feces are rarely watchable as simple movies. Hence comes audience apathy, as the moronic mania neared a wretched decade in length.

What is lost in this arrangement is another fatal symptom of series mortality: filmmaker disinterest. Oh, producers still desired more Herculeseseseseseses, from now until Ragnarok. They could only see lira signs cartoonishly in their own eyeballs, nothing more. Directors, actors, even lowly technicians, they’d shirk Herc, and by 1965 were off in the Spanish desert creating rip-offs of A Fistful of Dollars in favor of rip-offs of Hercules Unchained.


But for someone like Maurizio Lucidi, a Hercules movie could still be made, in total defiance of Zeus, Yahweh, even dreaded Xenu! For all you need is a back catalogue of the scant good Herculi, an editing booth, and the dubbing capacity to alter things as you see fit. Thus Hercules the Avenger, the dead final film in the cycle, is hastily cut-and-pasted from preexisting efforts, accomplishing top spectacle for minimal effort. And since dubbing is a phenomenally common factor in Italian movies, this makes the task that much simpler.

It seems someone was preemptively listening to my claims that the best of the series were always Hercules and the Captive Women and Hercules in the Haunted World. These came of the genre’s glory years, and of capable directors (Mario Bava for the latter). Even more usefully, Reg Park starred in each. So with a quick rejiggering of formula elements, the standout scenes of Park’s two efforts can be reshuffled into a new narrative, edited slightly for pace and whatnot (Lucidi is primarily an editor), and you’ve spuriously created the final Hercules!

Hercules the Avenger is a remarkably painless viewing experience, surely in light of the emaciated wastrels the later pepla had become. It helps that the original movies are decent – you won’t find me complaining about rewatching a Mario Bava movie. And the seams aren’t hugely obvious, a credit to the dubbing approach. Compare this to Trail of the Pink Panther, a similar(ish) cannibalism of former footage, but it a stagnated story with huge discrepancies in tone, quality, etc. And Avenger further solidifies my theory that the best pepla have been preserved more scrupulously than their lesser castoffs. There is actual color in this movie…though to compare it with images from the original movies, one still sees a certain degradation.



Actually, so non-misguided is Lucidi’s lucid effort, he was even granted the capacity to film assorted new scenes, amounting to at most 10% of the final product, to add the needed connective tissue (and tiresome tyrant subplot). And with so little time needed to be filled, Lucidi was able to accomplish a lush look comparable to the pilfered footage. They even got Reg Park back! All told, for a project as ignominious as “outright plagiary of something I’ve already scene,” Avenger is easily in the top 90th percentile of its genre.

Avenger’s story is spurned on by scenes of political intrigue, which seems to be new footage, if memory serves. Not that any one throne room scene is distinguishable from any other. King Eteocles (Franco Ressel) of the Kingdom TBD offers to wed Syracuse’s Queen Leda (Gia Sandri), to join their two realms. Okay, this always happens, and so does what follows. The wicked Eteocles learns, via a plot-enabling prophecy, that Hercules shall one day stop him. So Eteocles sets about scheming against Hercules, never realizing it’s just this behavior which’ll cause his defeat. As Eteocles puts it, “I know who the enemies of my kingdom are. They are my enemies.” Oh well thank you then!

Meanwhile, Hercules has worries all his own, as his new dubbing fills us in. He’s just slain the Hydra, something I think about three different Hercules films cover. This time, it’s earned him the undying wrath of, oh, let’s say, Gaea. Basically, it’s like those assorted Ulysses-invoking pepla which hypothesize a Poseidon vengeance in regards to the Cyclops’ de-eyeballing. Gaea’s de-Herculizing of the world involves bestowing a bizarre illness upon his son Xantos (Luigi Barbini). Hercules sets off on some vague voyage to “save his soul,” though it takes Avenger a good long while for this entire though process to become clear. Which is just in keeping with the other pepla, for a clarity of storytelling is priority # 196 for every single Italian genre artist. Besides, the audience needs something to confuse ‘em every once in a while.

Hercules’ trek starts out like the introductory sea voyage out of Hercules and the Captive Women. Actually, footage of Hercules randomly traveling on a ship (as he does in both instances) is so easy to plop into new contexts, there’s not even very much new dubbing. So the same sequence follows with nary an alteration: mutiny, marooning, Hercules singlehandedly tugging the ship back via chain, Hercules along escaping on the ship.



The entirety of Hercules’ subsequent adventure has nothing to do with Eteocles and his political intrigue. The only reason that stuff exists, as with most of Lucidi’s new footage, is to get this up to a proper, non-Hercules and the Princess of Troy running time, and to give Hercules a climax.

Sticking with the interesting thing (old footage), Hercules’ ship is wrecked in a storm. He slowly drifts from the start of Captive Women into the middle of Haunted World, and it really simplifies identification since all this even follows the order of the original films. But look what a little trimming of dialogue allows! In Captive Women, the Herc battles a shakeshifting elemental, who takes (among other shapes) the form of a large, rubbery iguana-man. Without citing the elemental, Avenger simply plops Hercules down in some inexplicable underwater yet completely dry grotto, to fight a real giant rubber lizard.


Meanwhile, Eteocles sets about his unrelated scheme against Hercules, which can move ahead even without Hercules’ presence. For, in something a little more clever than the standard “Go murder the unmurderable demigod,” Eteocles has decided to damage Hercules’ reputation (he’s gonna release a series of uninvolving exploitation movies?!). No, Eteocles has wrangled up a Herc lookalike, a Hercalike, and charged him with a sequence of (newly filmed) chaotic murders that rival the Joker’s. Never mind Eteocles, like most peplum tyrants, betrays his own villainous intentions by chumming around with a serial-killing muscleman.

Now, it seems many long-running series eventually succumb to the lookalike plot. It’s only surprising Hercules managed to avoid this until the very end. But oddly enough, it’s not a briefly returning Reg Park who plays the Herceauxles, Anteas. Nope, that’d be Giovanni Cianfriglia (a peplum bodybuilder so undistinguished, we haven’t even encountered him in this cycle). It’s telling that you can cast two entirely random bodybuilders as each other’s doppelgangers. I doubt Avenger does this to make a subtle satirical point, as it’s too concerned with telling a rousing yarn to make such meta statements. Still, for whatever reason Lucidi had to use a non-Park to seem Park-like, and it never seems exceptionally foolish.

That’s the new stuff, which necessitates new interpretation. Back on the Hercu-front, Hercules is well and surely in the Haunted World’s haunted world, though this time it’s not Hades, but simply some generic Land of Vague Damnation (Or Some Such). With no evident alterations, Hercules once again assists the Hesperides in obtaining their Golden Plot Apple. He then proceeds to cross a familiar pit of fire, and skips ahead to Haunted World’s climax for his wonderfully Evil Dead II-esque zombie fracas.



In considering screen shots back to back, it’s clear a lot of Mario Bava’s beautiful, hellish surrealism has somehow been lost, though the imagery remains. The crispness is gone, as are the rather immaculate widescreen compositions (which barely register at their present scale). It’s a testament to Bava’s art that even in this bastardized state, a repurposed Haunted World sequence remains the crown jewel in the genre.

Hercules frees Xantos’ bound soul, which is represented by the guy from Haunted World who played Theseus (awkward! – especially since there’s a totally different Theseus in this one). Thus ends the Haunted World segment of Avenger, and with it the movie has peaked.

Emerging from Quasi-Hell, Hercules learns of the ridiculous Anteas plot some good 2/3rds in. He also finds himself back in Captive Women for the majority of the ensuing action sequences, as Lucidi has the good grace to not trust himself with competent physical choreography. And now, as if we're in a completely different movie (which we are), Syracuse is well under the iron bicep of Anteas. And with Anteas’ body count somehow besting Jason Voorhees’, Hercules goes to the Valley of Agony (formerly the Valley of Unsuitable Leprous Would-Be Sacrifices) to amass an army of extras.



As in Captive Women, Hercules decides (here for less justifiable reasons) to trigger a volcanic eruption, because somehow Syracuse’s salvation lies only in Syracuse’s (nee Atlantis’) violent, cataclysmic destruction. What is it with Herc and wanton mass murder? (He does up Anteas’ kill count in a single swoop, for what it’s worth.)

Thus the prophecy is mostly fulfilled, with a little impenetrable detour so that Xantos can question his father’s sanity – see the general Italian issue with “B follows A” storytelling. At last, in new footage making up the climax, Hercules and Anteas face off in Peplum Cave. It’s a surprisingly legible wrestling match between two greasy dudes, something most pepla cannot manage. Here’s perhaps why Lucidi cast a new actor as Anteas, as he wouldn’t want the challenge of having Reg Park fight himself.


And this is how the Hercules franchise ends, on a much higher note than it has any right to, honestly. Though the whole series’ existence is a similar fluke, owing to a coincidence of timing, plagiarism, and good U.S. distribution. It’s pretty amazing that a cobbled reediting of preexisting movies could be among the better of this franchise’s efforts, due to the quality of those original films, the competence of the editing, or the general crappiness of everything else.

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Over on the Maciste front, that semi-Herculean franchise itself produced one more film after Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus, which by all means should’ve been the end of these franchises. And ever the follower where Hercules was the trail blazer, Maciste mangles out its final token entry, 1965’s Maciste, Avenger of the Mayans, using Lucidi’s Hercules approach. Namely, this is another cobbled-together act of filmic photocopying.

But like all Macistean efforts, it habitually sucks worse than Hercules – this I am unfairly assuming, having not seen the MACISTE Avenger. For the two films cruelly press-ganged into franchise eulogy service are Maciste vs. the Headhunters and Maciste vs. the Monsters. Now, I haven’t seen the latter (unavailable), but I maintain that the former is among the worst of its kind. Not to mention, while Lucidi had the common sense to reuse two Herculi with the SAME actor, these Macistes seem chosen at random, starring, respectively, Kirk Morris and Reg Lewis. Forget howall these actor/strongmen are one and the same; there is no way switching actors around like Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (only without that Gilliam-esque artisty) could work.

And there’s no English version of this thing either.

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Such covers, to my inestimable gratitude, the conclusion of the ‘60s peplum trend, with its glut of needless crossovers (which necessitated this interminable blog exercise in the first place). This is now the epilogue. Cinematic subgenres come and go in cycles; sword-and-sandals films existed prior to 1958’s Hercules, and would exist again afterwards.

Sticking briefly with Maciste…Only two more movies have emerged since 1965 with his name. These are not a part of the central franchise; besides, they are genuinely lost films. Both are the products of Spain’s über-crud-meister Jesus Franco, because when you need cinema which makes Italy seem like France, Spain is your man! Franco’s reputation is noxious, equivalent to the worst “Ed Woods” of various nations. And his Macistes? The Erotic Exploits of Maciste in Atlantis and Maciste vs. the Amazon Queen, both with Val Davis as Maciste (and each shot as one solo movie, then split up in another marvelous example of producers milking their products dry).

No more Macistes have followed, not even in Italy, the world’s only place where that name holds any sway. But seeing as Hercules derives from antiquity, whereas Maciste hails from 1914, it makes sense the one name would persist beyond the other.

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Hercules, the name and mythological (i.e. non-copyrightable) character, reappears with frequency fairly often. Consider the incomparable Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, early in his bodybuilding career when he was in serious danger of getting lost in the wilderness like his he-man forbears, in 1970’s Hercules in New York.

It was also Schwarzenegger who inadvertently reignited the peplum’s second wave of the 1980s, with his Conan the Barbarian. Soon Hercules returned again, now played by Lou “The Incredible Hulk” Ferrigno, in Hercules and Hercules II. By now, the formula which defined the ‘60s movement was long ago abandoned, and the nouveaux pepla are more “barbarian” than “Roman” – reflecting the general temperament of the ‘80s. So different were these movies, they fall under the wholly distinct term of “swords-and-sorcery.”

Toga movies evolved still, as mainstream, big Hollywood made Braveheart, leading to Gladiator, Troy, Beowulf, 300, and more such films I don’t want to list. These have more to do with Spartacus and Ben-Hur, films which were the impetus for the ‘60s Hercules craze to begin with. And with the only recent major “Hercules” being Disney’s in 1997, we’re well beyond the scope of our original discussion. And totally done with this branch of cinema. I’m out!



RELATED POSTS
• No. 1 Hercules (1958)
• No. 2 Hercules Unchained (1959)
• No. 3 The Revenge of Hercules (1960)
• No. 4 Hercules vs. the Hydra (1960)
• No. 5 Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis (1961)
• No. 6 Hercules id the Haunted World (1961)
• No. 7 Maciste Against Hercules in the Vale of Woe (1961)
• No. 8 Ulysses vs. Hercules (1962)
• No. 9 The Fury of Hercules (1962)
• No. 10 Hercules, Samson and Ulysses (1963)
• No. 12 Hercules in the Land of Darkness (1964)
• No. 16 Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon (1964)
• No. 17 Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus (1964)
• No. 18 Hercules and the Princess of Troy (1965)

Hercules, No. 18 - Hercules and the Princess of Troy (1965)

With the accursed peplum subgenre coming to a long overdue end in the mid ‘60s, producers wishing to somehow do something more with the form had two options. One involved accepting the inevitable, and making however many more cheapos you could, to make that final scant lira. The other approach is more far-reaching, a desperate gambit to unnaturally extend the format’s lifeblood via some revolutionary method. Hercules and the Princess of Troy falls into that latter camp. It does not succeed.

American producer Joseph E. Levine, the man responsible for the original U.S. distribution of the codifying Hercules and Hercules Unchained (and therefore the one responsible for this entire peplum mess), took it upon his not inconsiderable shoulders to do something worthwhile with the “Hercules” name, after so many Italians had squandered it in stagnation. Forget cinematic strongmen! Levine accepted Herc’s new place in the entertainment firmament and instead tried to create a TV show, “Hercules.” Not a wholly ridiculous notion, considering how successful the much later Sam Raimi-produced Kevin Sorbo “Hercules” proved to be, even spinning off into the more epic “Xena: Warrior Princess.”

But that bit of chintzy ‘90s sub-Syfy CGI-monster cheez had the benefit of distance from the ‘60s pepla, which had worn out audience acceptance through sheer multitude. Conceivably, Levine envisioned his never-to-be “Hercules” as a successor to “The Sons of Hercules,” that TV hybrid which got so many undeserving pepla U.S. viewership. And a pilot (“The Princess of Troy”) was made, under the same Italian machine which was so lamentably prolific, directed (oddly enough) by a non-Italian, Albert Band. His is a notorious name, as the elder Band sired Charles Band, founder of Full Moon and Puppetmaster profiteer. But before that, the elder Band directed his own brand of dreck: I Bury the Living, Grand Canyon Massacre, Prehysteria!, Dracula’s Dog, Ghoulies II…He even produced Troll, and anyone even indirectly connected to Troll 2 is worthy of being immortalized in song.


This “Hercules” pilot became one of many which wasn’t picked up. Credit peplum burnout. But ever the moneyman, Levine did not let his product languish. Despite a mere 47 minute running time, Hercules and the Princess of Troy was released into cinemas as an honest-to-goodness movie (the graveyard of failed TV), and with the blessing of Italy’s Hercules producers, it officially became the penultimate entry in the series.

That connection to television, and a mightily truncated running time, provide Princess of Troy with enough distinction to be at least not like all the others…as we’ll see.


Gordon Scott plays Hercules with as little distinction as any of the other guys. We’ve seen this guy before in Maciste vs. the Vampire and Maciste in the Court of the Great Khan (or at least we’ve desultorily glanced over those entries). He was even in a proper Hercules, Hercules Against the Molock, though that unseen episode was about a Hercules impersonator, so…so Scott never really essayed the Hercules role until Princess of Troy, hoping beyond hope it’d become a regular thing for him here.

Actually, certain elements are obviously products of a television concept, such as intended once-per-episode events, and a supporting cast which is underutilized for the time being, never to be seen again. The regular setting would be Hercules’ “shipboat” Olympia, as he sails home to Thebes from…wherever. This affords a reusable set, this cheap, cheap, cheap shipboat with gigantic “H,” a delivery system for assorted one-off adventures.

Accompanying Hercules are Ulysses (Mart Hulswit) and Diogenes (Paul Stevens), neither of whom get much of a chance to make any impression here. They’re seemingly counters to Hercules’ brawn. Ulysses is – I’m just assuming based on the ancient hero’s reputation – the brainiac. Diogenes is the inventor, able to technobabble out whatever random concoction the plot demands, like Gadget Hackwrench or one of the characters from “The A-Team” I am unfamiliar with.

An omnipresent narrator fills us in on all this and much more, connecting the narrative tissue they just couldn’t be bothered to actually script. For as inelegant a device as this is, in peplum terms it is highly welcome, as it cuts through the stilted chaff, compressing a standard eventless hour and a half into something digestible. A shorter peplum is automatically a better peplum, surely at this late stage.

This, and regularly spaced commercial blocks, are relics of Princess of Troy’s TV origins. Another relic is the surprisingly high quality of the visuals, compared to the accidental sepia tone which plagues most of the genre. I don’t know if copies of this movie were preserved via some other means, one used for failed TV pilots, but whatever it is, it’s far more effective than leaving film reels out in the mud to be trod upon by gypsies, or whatever it is they do in Italy.



With all that effort gone into merely creating series tropes, little time is left over for the plot-of-the-week. Just as well. That takes place at Troy, and I’ve spent altogether too much brain power trying to reconcile a Ulysses/Troy story that has nothing to do with “The Iliad.” But the continued combination of Hercules and Ulysses in peplum after peplum is already very confusing, mythologically, so leaving that scab largely unpicked for now…

In a welcome change of pace from the more pedestrian pepla, Princess of Troy returns to the strongest notion in the entire Italian sword-and-sandals playhouse: the giant, rubbery monster. These things were staples of the early Herculeses, full-scale dragons featuring in The Revenge of Hercules and Hercules vs. the Hydra. On whatever generosity that is a mid-‘60s TV pilot budget, Princess of Troy offers up another life-size beastie, a ridiculous sea monster. The scenario is straight out of Clash of the Titans (either version, I’m sure; I’ve only seen the Harryhausen one): To appease the rampaging behemoth, the Trojans make the occasional virgin sacrifice, comely maidens lashed to the sea rocks like so many Andromedas. For whatever reason, monsters all prefer the delicious taste of virgin. If I were a buxom Trojan harlot (a wholly unlikely suggestion), I’d just have some sex and avoid the problem.

So Hercules has an hour’s worth of television, minus ads, to resolve Troy’s beast issue. Because Diogenes can exposit out an eventual solution with ease, they gotta eat up time in some other way. Cue, wholly unoriginally, a vicious tyrant (Steve Garrett as Half-King Petra) looking to wrest total power of the kingdom. To that end, he wishes the “accidental” death of the titular princess, who is for some confused and ignorant reason called Diana instead of Helen (Diana Hyland – ah hah, they were just reusing the actress’ name!). The nonsense that follows is of no value, suffice it to say that in the final act, Diana is lashed to the rock awaiting slobbery aquatic monsterism.

Hercules’ inevitable duel with the creature is undoubtedly the saving grace of Princess of Troy (and also the Princess of Troy). Not only is the thing fully articulated, with a range of motion that’d make Stan Winston’s alien queen from Aliens envious, but they are entirely generous with the atrocity’s screen time. Band, as an American director, doesn’t subscribe to that idiotic Italian notion that all battles must be as unintelligible as possible. None of that barely-there lion fight nonsense here! We get lengthy, unedited, wide shots of Hercules actually interacting with the monstrosity. And check that thing out!


Actually, the beast is so impressive, a single pic cannot contain its awesomeness!


Okay, we still need a few more!




Hercules triumphs, to no one’s surprise except Petra’s (who’s conveniently roasted into a Cajun crisp in the burning ocean – whuh?!), as Troy is not only freed of its irritating monster infestation, but they get weeks’ worth of tasty beast briskets as a result. The movie ends, as any good TV pilot must, with the promise or more and greater adventures to come. And with ridiculous cheesy laughter. Upon Princess of Troy’s theatrical release, surely they knew this wasn’t forthcoming. Nonetheless, the narrator rapidly glances over a panoply of untold formula tales, assuring us that whatever we’d consider a happy ending would come eventually – though don’t bother filming it. Then the movie just sort of peters out.

There’s not much to say about Hercules and the Princess of Troy, as it mostly stands as a curiosity in a franchise that – just – would – not – die. It was the final filmed effort to extend this particular Hercules name a little further, beyond all the laws of nature, and it already represents greater obstinacy than most dying franchises would muster. But somehow even at this stage, even when Italians had stopped filming pepla, it didn’t mean they couldn’t still be made. Still one to go…


RELATED POSTS
• No. 1 Hercules (1958)
• No. 2 Hercules Unchained (1959)
• No. 3 The Revenge of Hercules (1960)
• No. 4 Hercules vs. the Hydra (1960)
• No. 5 Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis (1961)
• No. 6 Hercules id the Haunted World (1961)
• No. 7 Maciste Against Hercules in the Vale of Woe (1961)
• No. 8 Ulysses vs. Hercules (1962)
• No. 9 The Fury of Hercules (1962)
• No. 10 Hercules, Samson and Ulysses (1963)
• No. 12 Hercules in the Land of Darkness (1964)
• No. 16 Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon (1964)
• No. 17 Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus (1964)
• No. 19 Hercules the Avenger (1965)

Hercules, Maciste, Samson and Ursus, Nos. 17 & 24 & 5 & 8 - Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus (1964)

This is it. This is, at long last, the GREAT CROSSOVER.

The mightiest of all pepla, conceptually at least, has a name, as lugubrious as one would expect of this genre: Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus (for now on, HSM&U). If that doesn’t say more efficiently than any other possible name “This is a crossover of Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus,” I don’t know what does? (Though it could have added a “vs.” or three.)

This movie’s alternate U.S. title is Samson and the Mighty Challenge, which not only hides any sense of grandiosity, but unfairly marks the thing out as belonging to the frail, emaciated Samson franchise alone.


The idea of combining three of the greatest peplum heroes, and also Ursus, into a single definitive rumble has a certain lizard-like appeal (it’s also attractive to fans of the overtly homoerotic). It would be even more exciting if these four cinematic musclemen were anything more than interchangeable stand-ins for each other, but what’re ya gonna do? Of course, there have already been a few Hercules crossovers, such as with Maciste in Maciste vs. Hercules in the Vale of Woe, and with Samson in Hercules, Samson and Ulysses (spuriously, and not actually a crossover, is the similar Ulysses vs. Hercules). None of these is remotely good, so maybe I shouldn’t be too excited about the prospect of another one with four times the sweaty, glistening muscle. But thank Zeus, Jupiter, Jehovah, or whomever Ursus worships (himself), HSM&U is a fantastically atypical sword-and-sandals!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still dreadful, near the bottom of the cinematic agora. But at least it comes by these mistakes honestly, forging its own trail of insufficiency rather than just being an uninspired 20th generation copy of Hercules and the Captive Women. I’ve watched in essence the exact same movie every day for the better part of a month, making the rather rancid HSM&U a true godsend. Imagine trying to critique Friday the 13th Part III twenty days in a row; that’s what it’s been like.

Anyway, it can be effectively argued that a crossover doesn’t usually appear until desperation truly sets in. A rule of thumb is the more franchises are in a crossover, the more desperate they are. Look to the crossbreeding of Universal’s monsters, leading eventually to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and beyond. (I’d also point out Godzilla free-for-alls like Destroy All Monsters, except such maniacal multi-monster mash-ups became the SOP for Toho.) And surely by late 1964, the accursed Italian peplum craze was truly perishing, already dealt a fatal blow by A Fistful of Dollars and the ascendant Spaghetti Western. Pulling out all the stops, every single major peplum franchise combines here into a hybridized chimera, joining the powers of every series…

Which means HSM&U sucks with the combined magnitude of four mortal pepla.


With a budget paltry even by the standards of Maciste vs. the Headhunters, HSM&U is lucky they could afford a single marquee-name bodybuilding superstar. They did in fact get one, as Alan Steel draws the long gladius and plays Hercules (having only fist essayed that particular role earlier that year, in Hercules Against Rome). This leaves the other three lugs relegated to no-name he-men, obscure even by the standards of this forgotten trend. But we’ll get to those.

For now, Hercules is shown wandering with characteristic aimlessness, until Zeus’ voice booms down from the clouds with moral guidance. You’d be totally surprised to learn this is actually the first peplum I’ve seen which directly invokes Zeus, or any of that puffy cloud and lightning imagery. And lest we think this is one of those compromised American dubs, where Maciste is rechristened “Hercules” since non-Italians don’t know aught about Maciste, remember everyone is in this one, so when they say “Hercules,” they damn well mean “Hercules.” And Alan Steel is Hercules!

Hercules highs his way to the kingdom of Lydia – and don’t even bother trying to redress that Spanish coastal town as something that isn’t 20th century, guys! Around now I start to notice something funny (and not “ha ha” funny) about HSM&U…It is a comedy! OH…NO! Vale of Woe, the earliest such crossover (and the dead worst peplum I’ve seen, possibly excepting Ursus, the Terror of the Kirghiz) also tried to be a comic peplum, and was about as humorous as wildly bleeding hemorrhoids. But somehow HSM&U manages to work in spite of itself (though my standards are ridiculously lowered at this stage), never achieving “humor” but at least totally eschewing hateful, hair-pulling worthlessness. It seems built upon actual genre observation, noting especially its heroes’ personality flaws.

Consider Hercules, a boastful ass who lets everyone within earshot know at every possible moment about his demigodhood, how he achieves the Nietzschean ideal (though a B.C. he-man wouldn’t call it quite that, exactly) and is better than you. Yes, YOU! This is par for the course, which is one reason I’ve silently detested this peplum exercise. But among the characters Herc meets, they all treat him as I would – with anachronistically modern condescension, but with great tact lest he hear them and rip their throats out.

Okay, not every character acts that way – though those that do tip this film’s hand as a would-be comedy. Some people, especially Queen Nemea (Lia Zoppelli) are stupefied in Hercules’ exalted presence, as he prefers. It’s just as well, as this mania drives the plot. For Nemea wishes the Herc to wed her daughter Omphale (Elisa Montés); Omphale is of a sane mindset, and thoroughly opposes this. And would you lookie here! The Italians have discovered that subtle storytelling technique, conflict. Suddenly their stories can movie along naturally!

Omphale, in her struggle to cancel marrying the lunkhead, rigs the local oracle, much as Dreyfus rigged that supercomputer in Curse of the Pink Panther, to demand that first Hercules battle the strongest man on earth. You’ve a one in three chance of guessing this one correctly. It’s Samson (aka שמשון). Despite Hercules’ protestations, he (Hercules) is deemed “not a man” – a common ailment amongst steroid abusers – due to his demigod status. Can you believe they seem to have an actual, functional understanding of Hercules’ mythological history, even if they rather make an intentional hash of the Omphale story? I’d wager (for the first time in any peplum) the writers have done some honest-to-Atlas research, for the previously-unacknowledged mythological factoids which spring up. Amongst that “useless trivia” is the idea that Samson worships a non-Zeus god, namely Yahweh. Yes, they actually pose the Zeus vs. Our Lord debate, even if it goes nowhere. It goes to show they knew the subtext of these movies (or one subtext, at least, as the “gay” thing is never addressed).

I’m heaping oodles more praise onto HSM&U now than I rather expected to. Time to counterbalance that. There are many problems with HSM&U, and an early purposeless set piece with Hercules reflects that. While emissaries are off to Israel (or wherever) to find Samson, Nemea has Hercules perform odd jobs around the kingdom – an actually funny conceit. In one scene, he’s asked to dredge a ship from the ocean’s floor. Do you like uncut, murky underwater footage? Was Thunderball’s climax too short for you? You’ll love this bit, then, which somehow eschews the light and breezy tone most of HSM&U boasts for one of the worst Feats of Strength™ in the genre.

Add to that the out-of-place soundtrack, which for some reason samples Beethoven’s Fifth every time somebody namedrops Zeus. That’s when it’s not doing a lugubrious, anachronistic sci-fi pastiche, an utterly bizarre bit of tunage I’ve tried to transcribe here: “Bam bam BAM bam bam whoohohohohohoho!”


Meanwhile, emissaries are out scouring whatever wilderness this film crew had available for Samson. Finding a particularly sadistic muscleman in a tavern, they enter to find…Ursus (Yann L’Arvor). What, Ursus?! Already?!

Yann L’Arvor…This is just the start of uninspiring casting for the non-Hercules semi-Herculeses.

Ursus is blessed with the sort of personality flaws I’ve always associated with Charles Atlas and his sheep-like followers, namely Ursus is a bully. Though HSM&U uses Ursus in the same basic way as they do Hercules, it’s impressive how distinctly defined Ursus is. Ursus, as a mortal who’s become strong, is simply mean – an entitled, priggish asshole. If there were sand in this inn, he’d kick it in people’s faces. In a turn of events having nothing to do with the Hercules/Samson debate, the innkeeper sends his own emissary out to succor aid from Maciste. This is all a little random, but anything getting all four together in a halfway sensible way would be.


Let us forget about Ursus for now, as Nemea’s men have just found Samson (Nadir “Baltimore” – nadir indeed!)! With the possible exception of the unseen Hercules, Samson and Ulysses, this is the first Samson movie to get right a few facts about the Biblical Samson – which you’d think would’ve happened sooner. Namely, this Samson is the Biblical Samson, strength coming from his long, rabbi-like hair (yes, the “joke” with Samson is that he’s Jewish), and his love for “the jawbone of an ass” (which is a rather tittersome phrase the more it’s repeated).

And Samson is married…to Delilah (Moira Orfei). And let me take a momentary break to admire Miss Orfei…


Hello, Moira! She is truly the “Queen of the Peplum,” having also starred in (and these are just the ones I’ve considered) Hercules vs. the Hydra, Ursus, Maciste in the Land of the Cyclops, Maciste, the Strongest Man in the World, Ursus in the Valley of the Lions, Zorro vs. Maciste, The Triumph of Hercules. A little more broadly, Moira is known as Italy’s “Queen of the Circus,” and for a nation with a La Strada-like obsession with that institution, you know that means something!

Anyway, back to business. That Samson and Delilah are husband and wife, and bicker constantly like in a bad 1960s sitcom (comedy!), seems a sudden betrayal of the historical respect this goofy mash-up has dabbled in. Though great liberties are taken with the story, I needn’t have worried. Soon enough Delilah shears Samson’s hair as he sleeps, rendering him weak, and perfectly recalling the “Book of Judges.” (This was done to prevent Samson from fighting Hercules, and also schtupping the various known whores of Lydia.) With Samson now weak and cowardly and also beardless, his joke becomes just how worthless these bodybuilder types are when not God Mode Sues.

Back to Ursus! He terrorizes the bar more (actually, he never stopped), ordering people to “Dance!” like a villain in a western. To quote him:

“I SAID DANCE. I WAAAAANT MOOORE WIIIIINE. WWWWWIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNEEEEEEE!!!!!”

The great shitheel even takes to hurling people, inexplicably accompanied every danged time by a comedy slide whistle. But the time has come to pay for his Ursine crimes, as along comes the last of our required he-men, Maciste (Howard Ross). Maciste thrashes Ursus, and there was much rejoicing.


As contrast to the irredeemable buffoons that are the other three, Maciste’s persona is his innate decency, which becomes funny wholly by contrast. I’m glad they could work out unique traits for all these musclemen, seeing usually they’re all just off-brand Herculeses.

The emissaries behold Maciste’s Macistean strength – in fact, they note everyone’s comic book muscularity – and opt to take pretty much everyone back to Lydia as insurance seeing as Samson is a sissy girly man now. Everyone has different motives in the inevitable, upcoming Clash of the Four Interchangeable Guys, in an attempt to be a French farce. It doesn’t quite succeed – frankly, nothing in HSM&U is good – but there’s still the effort, and the intention behind it – and that goes a long way in my peplum-addled state. What does it say that this, the best movie I’ve seen in over a week, has a 2.2 on IMDb?

…

Okay, my fat neighbor is having an argument that’d make Hitler weep. She’s fat, loud and vulgar in the best of times, meaning today she’s fatter, louder and more vulgar than ever. I can’t deal with this, not when I wish to simply enjoy horrible movies in peace. I’m going for a nice stroll in the rain.

[Sound of me walking out of the apartment, locking up.]

[Sound of me going down the stairs.]

[Intensely long sound of nothing more than my fat neighbor’s furtive screeching echoing throughout a vacant unit.]

[Many hours later, sound of me ascending the stairs.]

[Sound of me entering my apartment, drying off, resuming Herculean pleasantries.]

Sorry about all that, folks.


Ursus, Maciste, Samson and the emissaries start the trek back to Lydia. Occasional slapstick fights break out, courtesy of Ursus. These somehow result in Blair Witch Project close-ups (also really pixilated) of various bearded men racing through the woods. Really, imagery like this belongs nowhere in an alleged comedy. This signals, for all HSM&U’s noble intentions, a notable dearth of competence, as the badness starts to creep into this effort as it must all late-period pepla.

Lydia is reached, and preparations are underway for the Rumble in the Agora, with assorted soap opera dramatics from Omphale ensuring all four shall tussle for our amusement. It won’t be that straightforward, since for reasons owing solely to the film’s running length, we suddenly meet neighboring tyrant King Inor (Luciano Marin). In a movie that’s shunned the usual tired peplum formulae, this left-field Third Act villain is most unwelcome. Despite the sudden appearance of Deianeira, another of Hercules’ assorted mythological harlots (who does not serve that purpose here), I’ll leave this section alone, as it might cause me unfathomable dismay.

Rather, I’ll skip right on over to the title fight, which duly occurs as though that last paragraph hadn’t happened at all. It’s a pretty sloppy affair (making it still one of the more cogent clashes in the genre), and it’s not a good sign that the pic below is the absolute best image from the whole ordeal.


Then things end with a literal deus ex machina, as Zeus just up and appears (via a ridiculous face-in-a-wall) to tell everyone to just stop and move along. This story wasn’t going to resolve itself anyway, and if I’m being generous I’d say “The Odyssey” ends in the exact same way. The four strongmen ride on, conflict over and nothing gained.

Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus may as well stand as the final monument to an entire dying genre, for as atypical as it is. For the Samson franchise, this was the end. For Ursus, only 3 Avengers remained, and I’ve already saved time by dismissing that one out of hand. Only one more Maciste was to come, which I’ll halfway address in two days. Hercules alone was able to manage two more movies after this, which is appropriate since Hercules was e’er the torch-holder for the pepla, the originator and the best. It is with those two final entries that we shall bid farewell to this era.


RELATED POSTS
• The Silent Maciste Franchise (1914 - 1927)
• Hercules No. 1 Hercules (1958)
• Hercules No. 2 Hercules Unchained (1959)
• Hercules No. 3 The Revenge of Hercules (1960)
• Hercules No. 4 Hercules vs. the Hydra (1960)
• Maciste No. 1 Maciste in the Valley of the Kings (1960)
• Maciste No. 2 Maciste vs. the Headhunters (1960)
• Hercules No. 5 Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis (1961)
• Hercules No. 6 Hercules id the Haunted World (1961)
• Maciste No. 3 Maciste in the Land of the Cyclops (1961)
• Maciste No. 6 Maciste, the Strongest Man in the World (1961)
• Hercules & Maciste Nos. 7 & 7 Maciste Against Hercules in the Vale of Woe (1961)
• Ursus No. 1 Ursus (1961)
• Ursus No. 2 Vengeance of Ursus (1961)
• Hercules No. 8 Ulysses vs. Hercules (1962)
• Hercules No. 9 The Fury of Hercules (1962)
• Maciste Nos. 8 - 20 (1962 - 1964)
• Hercules No. 10 Hercules, Samson and Ulysses (1963)
• Maciste No. 21 Maciste vs. the Mongols (1963)
• Hercules No. 12 Hercules in the Land of Darkness (1964)
• Hercules No. 16 Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon (1964)
• Maciste No. 22 Maciste in Genghis Khan's Hell (1964)
• Maciste No. 23 Maciste and the Queen of Samar (1964)
• Ursus No. 7 Ursus, the Terror of the Kirghiz (1964)
• Hercules No. 18 Hercules and the Princess of Troy (1965)
• Hercules No. 19 Hercules the Avenger (1965)

Ursus, No. 7 - Ursus, the Terror of the Kirghiz (1964)

There are a total of seven more fucking Ursus movies in the franchise. Thankfully, though, I’m only able to see one of ‘em, and in favor of my own sanity it’s getting a desultory write-up below along with the other six…


Part 3, Ursus in the Valley of the Lions (1961) – In another story with absolutely nothing to do with any other Ursus film, this one asserts that Ursus was born of royal blood (in direct contradiction to The Vengeance of Ursus), but lost his kingdom and parents as a baby, to the ruthless tyrant character we just know is there. So he’s risen by lions, because these shoddy filmmakers can’t even parse out that “Ursus” means “bear.” Seriously, that’s just inexcusable!...Oh, and then Ursus goes and gets his vengeance upon reaching adulthood – Vengeance! That’s another thing The Vengeance of Ursus forgot to add! A pox upon these movies!

Not that The Valley of the Lions can even count as a prequel. It’s just a different one, with a baby pre-story. Oh, and Ed Fury is back in the “role” he “originated” in Ursus, which somehow merely dates from earlier that same year – They did four Ursi in its first year (1961)! It’s staggering.

Oh oh oh, and befitting Ed Fury, his new Ursus is more complex than the usual peplum bicep-brain, because that asinine “raised by bloodthirsty lions” thing makes him a naïve discoverer of human society upon entering his own plot.

Part 4, Ursus and the Tartar Invasion (1961) – Did I watch it? No. Do I know anything about it? No. There is no story summary anywhere, even, so one can only presume the inevitable tyrant is a “Tartar,” then things proceed as normal. This sounds a most shoddy work, and its current nonexistence is probably a testament to its barely passable technical achievements.

A new muscle-moron makes himself known: Joe Robinson. Take it as a sign of my own recent “MST3K”-addled existence that I first typed that as “Joel Hodgson.” Actually, I’ve seen this lunk before, because James Bond beat him up in Diamonds Are Forever. He was Peter Franks. He was involved in a diamond smuggling operation for Blofeld and – Oh look, I’m getting distracted!


Part 5, Ursus in the Land of Fire (1963) – Another “Sons of Hercules” episode (they repackaged these movies into an unwatchable and forgotten TV show, to indicate their cumulative qualities), another Ed Fury entry – Could he get no other work?!

Let’s see…Tyrant – check! Ursus challenges him – check! Princess – check! Seductress – check! Ursus bound to a grist mill – check! Honestly, why the hell does a grist mill appear in each one of these?! (I usually don’t mention them.) Probably because an Italian bought a grist mill once, and god damn but these pepla are recycling-happy.

No, not a single thing about Land of Fire sounds interesting or unique.


Part 6, Ursus the Rebel Gladiator (1963) – It’s the plot of Gladiator, only told poorly and starring Dan Vadis. My already nonexistent interest continues to wane.


Part 7, Ursus, the Terror of the Kirghiz (1964) – Now this one, I watched. Steel yourself for an actual consideration. But don’t steel for Steel, for now it’s [spinning the Wheel o’ Musclemen] Reg Park’s turn to essay Ursus.

After viewing, it’s, yeah, it’s just Ursus versus tyrants yet again…but with a twist. (There’s a possibility each of these has such a twis.) For there is also a monster. [Spit take!] What?! Yup, there’s a generic monster rampaging throughout the countryside. Said monster is portrayed by a hairier-than-usual Italian, about as impressive an effect as Torgo in Manos. And because character motivation is not only murky, but flabbergastingly random and baseless, local tyrant King Zara (actor unclear, for all this movie’s sins) somehow blames the monster on Ursus. Why?! Eh, because Ursus is hunting the monster. That’s spurious logic. Basically, it seems the presence of Ursus (or Hercules, or Maciste, or whomever) automatically invites antagonism from local card-carrying villains, who wish said lug dead to no profitable end.


A smart peplum peddler (which pretty much means just Mario Bava) would use this premise to fashion a “Beowulf” story – which pretty much follows the peplum formula to a tee. But with Samson somehow neglecting the Biblical Samson story, Italian filmmakers don’t recognize low-hanging fruit when they see it. So instead The Terror of the Kirghiz becomes a maddeningly cluttered non-narrative about…actually, damned if I know. Assorted expected scenes transpire, each necessary archetypal fulfilled, and yet the connective tissue is not there.

Also, there is this white dog in every goddamned scene, with no ultimate plot utility, almost as though director Antonio Margheriti (1980’s Cannibal Apocalypse) owed the dog a favor.


Now, pepla are bad movies, all of them (excepting Hercules in the Haunted World and also, with some reservations, Hercules and the Captive Women). This is not a bold statement. To call The Terror of the Kirghiz “bad” even within this bulky brotherhood is a telling statement, and one which needs qualification.


Often, a “bad” movie is one with certain cheesy redeeming qualities, a nobly misguided effort with ineffective special effects or other charming deficiencies. Look to the universally loved Plan 9 From Outer Space, or the greater panoply of Godzilla masterpieces. “Bad,” amongst the pepla, is far more dire than that. These are products of a most imprecise nature, filmed with all the technical sophistication of the Zapruder film. These feel, by the mere tinge of their celluloid, like genuine snuff films, spurned things rotting for decades in some Roman’s moldy bric-a-brac cellar. That’s the brownish sheen sported by basically every peplum apart from the first six Herculeseseseses, something I’ve seen so much of now I suspect my eyes are permanently unable to see vibrant colors.


Actually, with technical imprecision come mistakes so unbelievable, you’d never expect it possible for a movie to even make such errors. Ursus, monster and soldiers “fight” (i.e. gesticulate in each other’s proximity) at thoroughly random intervals, in either the same quarter mile of forest trail or this one cave, though there are supposed to be dozens of locations. (The assassins pursue furious Ursus, and it’s Ursus versus spurious usurpers in a circus-seeming fracas.) Though the hateful “monster” is just a guy with pubes glued to his face, its anti-Ursine struggles possess the same ineptitude as most lion fights, though there’s no excuse for it now. I dunno, perhaps cinematographic illegibility was simply the style at the time.

Then Ursus drops out of his own picture for a solid 40 minutes, or so – I timed it, or so. In his faux-Herculean stead, they up and drop in a guy called Ilo (Ettori Manni), though the transition is so awkward I wasn’t even aware Ursus was missing until I realized Ilo is called “Ilo” more often than he is called “Ursus.” Yeah, they seriously cannot keep their characters straight, as new names come and go at random. That Ettori Manni looks exactly like Reg Park doesn’t help, as even confusion-based works like “Comedy of Errors” distinguish their identical twins.


Oh, and though even mighty Ursus couldn’t best the monster (which is the reason for his prolonged absence), Ilo is eventually able to conquer the same beast, even though he’s shown himself to be Ursus’ inferior in every way. No reason for this, it’s just in the script. Adding insult, the “monster” just turns out to be a moronic “Scooby” ploy, as in-story it’s just a man with his curly-twirlies reaffixed. So…Ursus was defeated by a man, which is patently impossible!

“Nino,” Ilo exclaims upon discovering the beast’s identity, and I was all “Who?!?!?!?!” Such reveals ought to be loaded with meaning, and there’s been no character by such an Italianate, name. With a little more research, I discover it’s the actor’s name, which went unnoticed by the entire film crew. How do such errors pass by unnoticed?!

Actually, the longer it goes on, the more Kirghiz becomes unwatchable. And I mean literally unwatchable, not simply inane and sluggish and without point, but where the images on screen seem more like a Stan Brakhage experiment than any sort of narrative motion picture. Whatever type of film these fools were using, it wasn’t really passing through the camera correctly – and no one ever thought to correct this, or reshoot their scenes. So moments of unintentional cinema verité which wouldn’t pass muster in Cannibal Holocaust (what is it with me today and referencing cannibal movies?!) pass by uncommented upon. Leaving only the garbled, drunken American dub to go by much of the time.


But even when the camera does work, the movie increasingly decides to shoot nothing of value. Either we’re in a cave which they opted not to light at all, or the cameraman simply dangles the machine at his side, strolling along as we marvel at the out-of-focus ground. Okay, Kirghiz has to be some sort of Andy Warhol experiential lark, right? This was made by confrontational auteurs wishing to explode our notions of the cinematic medium, right? I mean, there’s no way a traditionalist, someone hoping to make a David Lean-style epic, could commit blunders so egregious.

Oh well, at least this gives me something to talk about. Because when the movie is working to the immeasurably small height of its powers, it’s the same sort of peplum as The Vengeance of Ursus, about which I could say mostly curse words.

Lo and behold, they find even new ways to make Kirghiz the most unwatchable movie I’ve seen since my drunken buddies’ homemade zombie epic (though I don’t think we can blame the Italians for this one):


Oh, the movie did resume, and I did watch the rest of it, while trying instead to illustrate a casino for unrelated reasons, but there are no more observations worth noting. I officially stopped paying attention. Let the Ursus franchise stand (from what I’ve seen) as the lousiest assembly of almost-movies to ever qualify as a “series.”

And then there’s Part 8, 3 Avengers (1964)


Actually, that’s not a real Ursus poster. Seemingly, there is none.

This time, Alan Steel plays Ursus, in the same way he’s also played Hercules, and Maciste, and Samson. For every new peplum franchise I look into, I find the same half dozen strongmen appearing again and again. Hell, it’s one reason (among many) why none of these things is unique. Did they just have a rotation schedule, like in a compound of swinger polygamists? Did they decide Random Peplum #32A was to be an Ursus or a Goliath or a Hercules BEFORE filming, or at some random stage based off of a randomizing element? Up this subgenre’s cumulative anus!

Anyway, what of 3 Avengers’ content (and an explanation for why it’s called 3 Avengers, without a single titular invocation of “Ursus”)? Well, I find NOTHING about it, even compared to the dearth of info on the rest of this godforsaken franchise. Still, I can safely say it has the exact same plot as them all.

Part 9 – The GREAT CROSSOVER (1964)! Identity still not revealed (except for the RELATED POSTS addition below), but we’re a day away! Come back tomorrow (or whenever you damn well feel like it) to learn everything I can regurgitate about the GREAT CROSSOVER…and also probably some other movie too.


RELATED POSTS
• No. 1 Ursus (1961)
• No. 2 Vengeance of Ursus (1961)
• No. 8 Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus (1964)

Ursus, No. 2 - The Vengeance of Ursus (1961)

I was right! The Vengeance of Ursus has absolutely nothing to do with its predecessor, Ursus, except for that name. This barely even counts as a sequel. Worse yet, absolutely everything Ursus did (what little there was) to tinker with the standard peplum formula is undone here, making this absolutely an undistinguished Italian sword-and-sandals.

Those things Ursus did “well” (for a very inexact usage of the word “well”) mostly involved humanizing the standard lunk-headed oaf who qualifies as hero in these travesties. For about the first time in any damn peplum, the lead (Ursus, natch) was fallible, mortal…though not by much – I’m simply speaking in relative terms. This was the lone factor of Ursus which got me through it, because it otherwise barely counts as a movie.

While I liked that changeup, it seems the Italian nutjobs who flocked to these pepla felt otherwise, seeing as the “Ursus” of Vengeance of Ursus is just about the beefiest, burliest, stupidest lug to ever grace European cinema. The star now – what, you thought just once a peplum series could maintain inter-entry actor continuity?! – is one Samson Burke. That’s the closest any real life name is gonna get to “Brock Samson,” so I rue having already referenced that name during a Hercules recap. Burke is no Swedish Murder Machine, but rather a Canadian bodybuilder, who – zzzzzzzzzz!

Actually, you know those big, dumb guys the action hero (in real movies) fights around ¾ to 7/8 through? Like that bald German boxer on the Fixed-Wing? Well, Ursus is that guy, for all intents and purposes, with no other redeeming fixtures. Imagine spending an entire film (let alone franchise) in the company of such stilted semi-humans. It isn’t pleasant.

Story? Oh, right. An evil tyrant wants to conquer a different kingdom, and tries marrying that kingdom’s princess to that end. Ursus stops him. Actually, Ursus can barely figure it all out until 90% through, for how otherwise perfect the great ass is. This movie’s only notable accomplishments are as follows: A) increased screen time for a whining, incorrigible child (which causes me literal pain), and B) an assertion that the standard Feats of Strength™ actually exist to determine a man’s morality. Those witch-murderers at Salem were cleverer than this.

Actually, there’s absolutely nothing else to say which I haven’t already said about some other sword-and-sandals. I shall let Vengeance rot in largely-unreviewed hell. Good riddance! But as proof I suffered through it, I’ll let my standard screen caps serve entirely in lieu of a continued consideration.








Ursus can kiss my ass!


RELATED POSTS
• No. 1 Ursus (1961)
• No. 7 Ursus, the Terror of the Kirghiz (1964)
• No. 8 Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus (1964)