Maciste vs. the Mongols. Another Maciste movie. Starring Mark Forest. Following the exact same strictures of the peplum as always. On a low budget. With disinterested direction. There’s only one thing which makes Mongols even halfway unique: Mongols!
Temporal instability is the only thing separating Maciste from Hercules, ‘cause it sure ain’t the main characters. Late into the sword-and-sandals cycle, Maciste becomes the muscle-bound poster child for the theory that setting variation would be enough to upend formula and extend the genre’s lifeblood. It also becomes an example, then, of how misguided this notion is, how a peplum will revert to trite cliché at the soonest possible chance. (I mean, we’ve seen Samson vs. the Black Pirate do so in a swashbuckling setting.) Frankly, I’d like there to be a completely contemporary peplum, just to highlight this particular disability. Hell, they could at least very easily make one to accommodate the Nazis, though the Italians had yet to discover that particular exploitation subgenre.
From a production standpoint, Maciste vs. the Mongols showcases how unprepared peplum peddlers were for presenting unusual cultures in the first place. First of all, their casts are always culled mostly from Italy, and the lesser actors of surrounding regions. (Also, toss in a few naïve bodybuilders from the States.) Surely there’s no one in here who could adequately portray a Chino-Russo Asian. Instead they just put the Euro actors in atrocious makeup, artificially slanted eyes (tasteful!) and cruddy Faux Manchu facial hair. This is the low budget equivalent of John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror. In fact, Italian racial sensitivity (at least in their genre fare) has already proven to be a fair lick worse than it was in archaic, lamented Hollywood fare such as early Charlie Chans or Song of the South or this.
That’s just one issue, which wholly dogs the film. The other, equally as damning from a cinematic viewpoint, is the recycling of sets. It makes sense in all the Greco-Roman-Judeo-Mesopotamian-Egypto-Atlantean pepla that certain palace and fortress and throne room and dungeon and catacomb and lion pit settings would get reused, with only slight redressing from film to film. This has become distractingly noticeable as my peplum familiarity grows further than I’d ever hoped or dreamed. Besides, these sets were all hand-me-downs from when Ben-Hur filming randomly visited Italian soil – the real reason for an entire subgenre’s existence.
Needless to say, Mongolia circa 1227 does not particularly resemble Ancient Rome. They mostly get this right. However, neither does it resemble the sort of Bavarian hamlet you’d expect to see Frankenstein’s monster lumbering through. This is their mistake. For the Germanic village set was another Italians had on hand, origin unknown, though seen in the more swishy swashbuckler pepla (see Zorro vs. Maciste, Maciste vs. the Sheik or Samson vs. the Pirate…if you dare!). Throw in white dudes affecting horribly offensive buck-toothed sing-song “Me rikee lice” Asian stereotypes, assorted random Babylonian details they had lying around the lot, and those culturally vague tents used in the notably rank Maciste vs. the Headhunters. It’s all so anachronistic! And I am overly aware now of the production limits which necessitated this design approach, but it does great disservices for my ability to “buy into the fantasy.”
I say all this because it’s something to talk about re: pepla, as the narrative content of Maciste vs. the Mongols offers nothing. Most of the variation lies in neglecting certain tropes, though without the good sense to counter their absence with anything new. Rather, there is simply no seductress, no city destruction, no plot juice of power. That leaves the (shoddy) lion fight, the (needlessly complex) political intrigue, the (boring, boring, boring) good girl, the (homoerotic) serial shirtlessness, plus a whole lot of other standards I’ve started to actively repress, lest I notice them again and grow insane.
For “story,” the great Genghis Khan has died, leaving the empire to his three sons (neglecting the no doubt hundreds of illegitimate Khan spawn). Lest you think this the setup for a long-running TV sitcom, these three are the shittiest Khanlets you could hope for. Let’s meet em!
Not that they’re at all distinct from each other as characters, except different actors play each one. As Susdal, Renato Rossini, aka Howard Ross. Why they credited his more Italianate name is a mystery for the ages. As Sayan is American crapketteer Ken Clark, embarrassing himself again. The third one is apparently called Gigan (ガイガン Gaigan), at least in the English dub, a name the IMDb does not corroborate. By process of elimination, I determine this guy is played by…Maria Grazia Spina. No…that can’t be right…
The great Khan’s will stipulates, hypocritically, his sons should make peace. Like any good reverse psychologist, this prompts them into expanding the Mongs even further…all the way to the kingdom of Tuleda. Never heard of it! Actually, the only Tuleda I am aware of is a small town in Spain, which seems pretty far afield for the Mongols. Not when the whole of freaking Europe stood in their way, and the Spanish were all too busy with the Moors anyway. But what’s an Italian movie without a confusing notion in the place of a sane one? Let’s just call this “Tuleda” a generically “Euro” place, as Mongols’ anachronism stew befits.
So the Mongol Trio (with backup singers) enslaves many genuinely white people – Boo! Hiss! we’re no doubt meant to say. And the boring (but redheaded!) princess Bianca de Tuleda (José Greci, which is apparently a woman’s name, or a very convincing drag act) becomes the Mongs’ slave. Not that they know it yet, in their directionless zeal for bland, gormless violence.
Only a mighty cracker can save these people now!
What of goddamn Maciste (goddamn Mark Forest) during all of this? He’s been needlessly moving trees in the forest, which is rather proactive for such a he-hunk early on. The big lug lugs logs and lags in rags as the story drags.
Also, Maciste has met Alexander (Loris Loddi), the exiled 4-year-old (what’d he do?!) Prince of Tuleda, who later becomes a symbol and bargaining chip, same honor as is normally reserved for buxom yet inane damsels. Though Maciste vs. the Mongols seems to revere young Alexander with the same icky leering as Captain Ouvre in Airplane! “Do you like movies about gladiators?” indeed! I wish to say no more of Alexander, as all children in Italian movies irritate horribly, always dubbed by adults attempting the most grating, cloying voices imaginable. This even sullies the otherwise marvelous A Fistful of Dollars.
Anyway…Maciste eventually meets the Mongols – actually, all three sons at once – and Maciste clongs Mongs’ bungs as best he Khan. It’s the “vs.” part, and it’s rather shocking how early and easily Maciste bests the three villains of the piece.
That’s right, pepla are populated with the most ridiculous God Mode Sues in filmdom, which forces lazy plot lengtheners most of the time. Yup, these steroid-enhanced bodybuilders need artificial enhancement, as they cannot go a full round, as it were, on their own! So Maciste learns of Bianca’s imprisonment, and opts for the stupid path to rescue her. Rather than just go into Tuleda and mash massive masses of Mongoloid minions in a merciless melee of man-mangling, Maciste goes and…becomes Susdal’s slave!
There’s a little more to it than that. Fighting in some arbitrarily setup tournament (read: an excuse for a wrestling scene), Maciste earns Bianca’s freedom at the cost of his own. This would seem a setback for Susdal and siblings, since they (but which one?!) meant to marry Bianca in order to legally control Tuleda – That seems very un-Mongol. No matter, Susdal seems quite pleased to have a greased, oiled he-man in chains, which – Not going there!
And up until this point, their efforts to suss Bianca out from the slaves yielded but a very familiar chorus of all the women shrieking “I’m Bianca!” We’ve seen the same precise thing in Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon, but Mongols gets the jump on that by one year. It’s still beaten by Spartacus, no doubt what it is homaging – pardon, shamelessly ripping off. And let’s see…hidden woman among (Mong) the slaves, Spartacus bowdlerization, three corrupt and back-stabbing rulers… Yeah, this is precisely the same movie as Tyrants of Babylon. Surprise, surprise, director Domenico Paolella did both! Yeah, peplum directors each have their own specialized narratives, which is a phenomenal example of laziness.
Back to business…Maciste is in the villains’ palace, at the proper 5/8ths through moment. But without a seductress to be seducee to, and no dancing girls to leer at, Maciste can do naught but perform pointless Feats of Strength™ for a while (there’s also the gay Susdal thing, but we’re not going there). There’s not much point to this, but it eats up screen time, and is very peplum-esque.
Usually these sword-and-sandals movies tread water before the “big” climax with seduction. Further substituting for that, Bianca returns to town, for remarkably convoluted reasons, and grows angry at Maciste over freeing her. There’s a cause and effect here. Effect (it’s more interesting): Maciste and the token female get to argue a little, them make up at the end. Cause: Bianca thinks Maciste has sided with the Mongols, in order to unearth her hidden treasure right over there in that grist mill. Oh God, why is even a fucking grist mill a requirement in these movies?! These have the stupidest formulae ever! (You’d think a Feat of Strength™ could come about from this mill; you’d be wrong.)
This nonsense is all well and good, but it doesn’t wholly kill time. So, for no reason, let’s have Maciste fight a lion in his bedroom. Yeah, there’s not really any justification. But you knew there’d have to be a lion at some point, so go with it.
With imminent climax comes imminent battle scene, which is never well done. It’s not even explained why suddenly there are all these Crusaders (mighty Caucasians) ready to whoop some marauder butt.
When text dries up and screen caps dominate, that means there’s nothing worth commenting upon, that the crap on screen is just idly occurring to no end. I detest this subgenre. this series, for being so repetitive. We know how it’ll end – Maciste shall fight for the good (i.e. European) people, brutally murder every last Mongol, and a proto Star Wars medal ceremony shall close it all out.
Details make the difference, and Mongols has already declared its only substantive differences have to do with that new setting – which isn’t even done well. So this particular listless war involves the following: Spears, swords, horses, siege towers, trebuchets, and whatnot. Actually, I think I’m making it sound more interesting than it is, so I’m stopping now.
As for that heroic act of mass-Mongol-murder, Maciste hoards the horde into the forest, then sets it on fire. These guys, without proper wildfire survival training or even a single fire shelter, all roast. Mongolian barbeque! (Okay, this whole paragraph exists to justify that pun.)
And Machiste kills off dreaded Sustal personally, in a moment of physical interaction Sustal certainly appreciates.
Star Wars medal ceremony.
In summation…ah, I don’t have anything else to say! These Mark Forest Macistes are surely the breadwinners for this particular franchise, as they always get the best budgets of any Maciste (compare ‘em to the thoroughly virtue-free Kirk Morris and Alan Steel efforts). But all those lira and all the extra attention does nothing to resolve a fundamental problem inherent in the overall genre. That flaw is mostly one of stagnation. Yes…we’re…stagnated…
RELATED POSTS
• The Silent Maciste Franchise (1914 - 1927)
• No. 1 Maciste in the Valley of the Kings (1960)
• 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. 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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