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)
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