A welcome breath of not-so-fresh sweaty centurion air, Mario Costa’s Conqueror of Corinth is pure peplum propaganda intent for some reason on making modern audiences believe that when Rome went and obliterated the Greek city state of Corinth 2100 years ago, that the Romans were actually the good guys we should be rooting for! Continue reading “Conqueror of Corinth (1961)”
Category: Sword & Sandal
Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun (1964)
I don’t know about you, but I like my Hercules to look really beefy and have a well-groomed beard. I’m not into a budget Hercules who is quite hairless, only has moderately sized pecs and gazes wistfully at llamas.
If you’re wondering how it is that Hercules is even on the same continent as a llama, you don’t know much about the ancient world. Hercules (Mark Forest) and his buddies angered the gods (probably Neptune according to Hercules) and of course had their asses shipwrecked in South America! Continue reading “Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun (1964)”
Goliath Against the Giants (1961)
This movie was only half-lying based on its title. Unlike some previous outings (we all remember when Maciste showed up instead of Goliath in Goliath and the Vampires) there was actually a guy named Goliath tearing up ships and heaving Styrofoam rocks at guys in linen dresses. However, it pains me to report that the movie was quite bereft of anything that could be called a giant other than a guy Goliath fought who just happened to be taller than him. Continue reading “Goliath Against the Giants (1961)”
Ali Baba and the Sacred Crown (1962)
Who is the real Ali Baba? Is he just a simple woodcutter who stumbled onto the greatest find in all of ancient Arabia? Perhaps he’s just a common thief, sneaking around securing his ill-gotten gains by eavesdropping on other thieves? Or maybe he’s the guy who has to constantly be saved from the murderous thieves by the guile of his brother’s slave girl?
If you were any kind of reader, all the foregoing would certainly be possible based on the tale commonly recounted in One Thousand and One Nights. My Ali Baba though is too cool for trillion year old stories that don’t make a lick of sense. (What sort of lesson does this story teach – make sure your slave girl is some kind of Navy SEAL?) Continue reading “Ali Baba and the Sacred Crown (1962)”
Goliath at the Conquest of Damascus (1965)
Before this movie started I didn’t even know what continent Damascus was on! If that’s the sort of detail that really matters to you when you’re watching a movie, Goliath at the Conquest of Damascus begins with a map with labels and narrator to walk you through it. For me though, by the time the guy was babbling on about the fourth different set of tribes fighting over some sandy armpit the civilized world quit caring about thousands of years ago, I just gave up trying to sort out what some guy named Thor was doing in the middle of it all. Unleash the glistening guns of whatever gargantuan grapple god this movie stars already! Continue reading “Goliath at the Conquest of Damascus (1965)”
The Giant of Marathon (1959)
Supposedly, The Giant of Marathon was a relatively big budget affair and I thought that with Hercules emeritus Steve Reeves (Goliath and the Barbarians) in the title role and director Jacques Tourneur (War-Gods Of The Deep) behind the camera that I might just be in for something a little more special than the usual all-male grab ass that these movies usually flexed and posed their way into by the end. On the “jock is half empty” side of things though, I was concerned that since it was about famed Olympian Phillipides, I was going to be subjected to some old time Olympic action. Continue reading “The Giant of Marathon (1959)”
The Giant of Metropolis (1961)
The Giant of Metropolis features Gordon Mitchell and if he looks a little rough around the edges, it might be because he began making this movie a mere two days after he wrapped Maciste In The Land Of The Cyclops. But it probably has something more to do with the fact that he was thirty-eight years old!
Is there anything that makes you squirm more than having to see some guy’s dad running around sucking his gigantic chest in and flashing his old man guns at you every five seconds? All of this may explain why there are some scenes where he has to walk around on rocky ground and looks like he’s stumbling and about ready to fall over. Continue reading “The Giant of Metropolis (1961)”