Hercules, Samson & Ulysses (1963)

1958 saw the beginning of the short-lived but spectacular Italian peplum boom. Scores of imitators followed, and then after five or six years it was all over. The Italian film industry abandoned the peplum and embraced the spaghetti western. Which is a pity since on the whole the peplums were a lot more fun. Pietro Francisci directed the movie that started the craze, Hercules. And In 1963 he directed one of the last notable entries in the cycle, Hercules, Samson & Ulysses.

Francisci had in fact been making historical epics since the beginning of the 1950s. And in 1973, long after the peplum craze had run its course, he made yet another movie of this type, Sinbad and the Caliph of Baghdad. Clearly Francisci had a taste for this sort of thing.

Hercules, Samson & Ulysses opens with Hercules and his young friend Ulysses battling a sea monster that has been menacing Greek fishermen. Before the monster can be dealt with a storm intervenes and the heroes are shipwrecked. Hercules and Ulysses and four companions survive but the storm has taken them a very long way - all the way to a Danite village in Judea.

The people of Judea don’t seem too pleased about the arrival of these shipwrecked Greeks. Actually they’re mostly worried that the Greeks might be in league with the hated Philistines. The villagers are also worried that these visitors might betray their hero Samson who is hiding out amongst them.

Hercules and his friends set off for Gaza (where they hope to find a ship to take them home to Greece) accompanied by a Philistine merchant. When Hercules kills a lion with his bare hands the merchant is convinced that he must really be the famous Danite hero Samson. And there’s a very large reward for anyone who helps the Philistine king to capture Samson.

Hercules will meet the real Samson and in order to save his friends he will have to betray Samson to the Philistines. Unless of course he can find some honourable alternative - and Hercules can surely be relied upon to do the honourable thing?

Pietro Francisci knew his stuff when it came to directing this type of movie. The pacing is taut and there are some inspired moments. The action scenes (of which there’s no shortage) are well executed. The highlight is the epic fight between Hercules and Samson with the two heroes hurling gigantic stone blocks at each other, knocking over stone walls and generally demolishing every structure in sight. It’s truly one of the best peplum fight scenes ever. There are more superb and inventive action sequences in the latter part of the film.

The sets are very impressive. For a low budget movie this production manages to look very expensive.

Francisci wrote the screenplay as well as directing and he came up with a fairly decent story. It takes some of its inspiration from the Biblical story of Samson but brings Hercules into the story in at least a vaguely plausible way.

The acting reaches no great heights but it’s fine for this style of movie. Kirk Morris (who despite his screen name was an Italian actor and bodybuilder) is a convincing and quite acceptable hero and his performance is actually quite lively. Samson is played, and played pretty well, by Iranian actor Iloosh Khoshabe (under the suitable American-sounding name Richard Lloyd) while Ulysses is played in rather amiable and not overly heroic style by Enzo Cerusico. To be honest Ulysses is a minor character in this story. The original Italian title Ercole sfida Sansone would have been more accurately and more appropriately translated as Hercules Challenges Samson.

Diletta D'Andrea provides some amusement as Leria, the wife of Hercules. She’s a devoted wife but she’s getting a bit fed up with having her husband constantly away from home doing hero stuff.

Aldo Giuffrè is suitably cruel and villainous as the Philistine King. A really classic peplum should have a beautiful but evil queen and in this film it’s the notorious Philistine queen Delilah, played with considerable panache by Liana Orfei. Hers is the standout performance in the movie. I especially love her costume in the climactic battle scene - she looks like a sexy comic-book super-villainess.

The Warner Archive made-on-demand DVD provides a pretty good anamorphic transfer. There is some very minor print damage but not enough to worry about and the colours are pleasingly vivid. If you’re a hardcore peplum fan you’ll know how hard it is to find these movies on DVD in an acceptable condition and in the correct aspect ratios - and peplums were always made in a widescreen format and even more than most movies they absolutely have to be seen in the proper aspect ratio. This release is most definitely a welcome one. One word of warning - don’t watch the trailer before watching the movie. It gives away far too much!

All peplums have a certain amount of camp appeal but Hercules, Samson & Ulysses stands up as a very decent action adventure movie indeed. This is definitely not to be dismissed as a so-bad-it’s-good movie. It’s superbly made, fairly well acted, it looks terrific and it’s packed with genuine spectacle and imaginative action scenes. It may have come along towards the tail end of the peplum boom but it’s one of the best movies of the genre. Very highly recommended.

Hannibal (1959)

Hannibal was one of the last movies in the strange but fascinating career of Edgar G. Ulmer, a director who achieved very little success during his lifetime but who since his death has accumulated a considerable and very loyal cult following.

By the late 50s it seemed that Ulmer was permanently trapped in ultra-cheap B-movie territory so Hannibal comes as something of a surprise - it’s a fairly lavish costume epic with no less than 12,000 extras in the battle scenes! It’s an Italian production shot in Italy and Yugoslavia but part-financed and released by Warner Brothers. It’s by far the most large-scale movie Ulmer ever made. It must have been quite an experience for Ulmer having a budget of around $5 million to play with! That’s possibly more than all his other films put together.

The movie opens with the great Carthaginian general Hannibal’s epic crossing of the Alps in 218 BC with his army, complete with the  famous elephants. It also establishes the idea of Hannibal being a rather complex character - he doesn’t hate Rome but he is determined, in his own words, never to bend the knee to the Romans. It also establishes the idea that Hannibal’s invasion is to some extent a defensive response to Roman aggression. Hannibal is to be the hero so obviously he has to be made fairly sympathetic.

The Alps having been successfully crossed the movie then veers in two separate directions, focusing on Hannibal’s extraordinary victories over the Romans at Trebia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae but also focusing on a rather melodramatic romantic sub-plot involving Hannibal’s love for the niece of the Roman senator Fabius Maximus. This sub-plot does serve some purpose, reinforcing the notion of Hannibal as a sometimes quixotic romantic hero, although it drags a little. The crossing of the Alps is the highlight of the picture, with Ulmer managing (with a mix of location and sound stage shooting) to convey the extraordinary difficulties and dangers involved. 

The battle scenes may infuriate history buffs - the Roman and Carthaginian armies were in reality disciplined armies that fought in regular formations rather than straggling mobs of barbarians involved in a massive pub brawl. On the other hand these battle scenes do have a certain vitality and Ulmer does make an effort to show us that Cannae was a battle won by superior generalship and tactics rather than mere courage. Ulmer apparently used no less than six cameras to shot these scenes, with the Cannae sequences being shot on the Yugoslav Army’s artillery proving range.

The human elements introduced into the story are hampered by some rather poor acting from most of the supporting cast. Gabriele Ferzetti isn’t too bad as Fabius, making a real effort to portray him as a man of iron determination, cool judgment and remorseless will. Rita Gam as Hannibal’s Roman love interest Sylvia seems rather unsure of herself.

There’s no problem however with Victor Mature as Hannibal. He’s obviously having a wonderful time. He plays the part with a twinkle in his eye (I say eye rather than eyes because for most of the movie he sports a rather piratical eye-patch on one eye). Mature’s approach actually works very well, helping to humanise the character. Mature was a very underrated actor and even when overacting he is able to convey the impression that Hannibal is man of unexpected depths, capable of unpredictable moments of generosity and compassion.

In accordance with standard Italian practice the dialogue was undoubtedly dubbed in during post-production. Fortunately we get to hear Mature’s real voice, a major bonus since he delivers even potentially embarrassing lines with zest and panache.

More interesting than the film itself is one of the extras - an audio interview with Ulmer conducted by Peter Bogdanovich. Ulmer’s stories of his early career are fascinating but he also talks about making Hannibal. Ulmer wanted to make the movie a human drama rather than a mere spectacle and eventually came up with an idea of how to do this. His idea would also explain the mystery that has puzzled historians for two thousand years - when Hannibal had Rome at his mercy after the Battle of Cannae why didn’t he complete his victory by marching on the virtually undefended city and conquer it? Ulmer’s imaginative solution was to portray Hannibal as a man who knows that he represents a dying civilisation while Rome represents the future. When he finds himself in a position to destroy Rome he can’t bring himself to do it because it would mean destroying the future. Whether this idea had any basis in historical fact is more than dubious but in filmic terms it was a great idea and would have given the picture a tragic dimension as well as giving Hannibal real psychological complexity. Tragically the studio vetoed the whole idea, much to Ulmer’s disgust, and those scenes were never shot.

VIC have done a very decent job with their DVD release. The movie was shot in Cinemascope and colour and the transfer is anamorphic. The print used is in fairly good condition. It’s just a little dark in places but on the whole it’s quite vibrant and there’s no noticeable print damage.

Had Ulmer been allowed to make the picture his way Hannibal could have been one of the great epics. As it stands it’s still an interesting and slightly unusual costume film. Ulmer adds a few nice touches and Victor Mature’s performance is enough on its own to make this worth watching. Recommended. 

Magnificent Gladiator (1964)

Magnificent Gladiator was a late entry in the Italian peplum cycle. It’s not by any means a great example of the genre but it is a good deal of silly fun.

It was written and directed by Alfonso Brescia and if you’re familiar with Brescia’s work this may well cause you to gnash your teeth in despair. Brescia is one of the legendary bad film-makers but while he was certainly bad he was never boring. 

This film belongs to the non-fantasy historical peplum sub-genre - they are no monsters or supernatural events. However one should not jump to the conclusion that anything in this movie has much to do with actual history.

It starts with the Romans fighting the Dacians. Attalus, the son of the Dacian king, surrenders in order to save his people. In the English dubbed version Attalus becomes Hercules because in English-dubbed peplums the hero is always called Hercules. 

Attalus/Hercules (Mark Forest) soon wins the favour of the Roman Emperor Gallienus (Franco Cobianchi) by demonstrating his prowess in the arena. Gallienus is a rather jovial sort of emperor but he is by no means a fool. He takes a genuine liking to Hercules and the feeling is reciprocated. Hercules’ people have been enslaved but that is no great problem. Gallienus assures our hero that they will soon be granted Roman citizenship and in fact he has every intention of honouring his promise. So everything seems pretty hunky dory - the Dacians can look forward to a future of security and prosperity as part of the Roman Empire, and Hercules has every prospect of marrying the emperor’s daughter Velida (Marilù Tolo).

There is however one major problem. That problem is Zullo (Paolo Gozlino). Zullo is wealthy, powerful, treacherous and ambitious. He intends to marry Velida himself and to seize the imperial throne. A good peplum has to have a beautiful evil princess and in this movie that function is performed by Clea (Jolanda Modio). She’s not actually a princess but she is a noblewoman highly placed at the imperial court and she is evil and she is beautiful. She’s also Zullo’s girlfriend but she’s happy to go along with his plans to marry Velida, confident that her rival can be disposed of later.

Zullo has a lucky break when he finds an out-of-work actor convicted of thieving, an actor who just happens to be the spitting image of the emperor. By substituting the actor for the emperor he can ensure the succession for himself after which he can get rid of both the emperor and the actor.

It goes without saying that Hercules gets wind of this nefarious plot and sets out to save Velida, and the emperor, and the Roman Empire, and his Dacians.

This movie is a bit unusual in that neither the Romans nor the Dacians are the bad guys. The trouble is caused entirely by the evil machinations of Zullo and Clea. 

In an Alfonso Brescia movie you expect some serious weirdness. In this case the weirdness is provided by the crazy hyperactive shepherd Drusius (Oreste Lionello). Drusius also provides the obligatory comic relief. He is loyal to Hercules but most of all he is loyal to his sheep, especially his favourite sheep Messalina.

Unusually for a Brescia movie (generally synonymous with extreme cheapness) Magnificent Gladiator does have a certain amount of at least moderately impressive spectacle including a reasonably large-scale battle scene early on. The sets also are not too bad - possibly they may have been left over from a more expensive production? This is still clearly a very low-budget movie but for a Brescia movie it doesn’t look as shoddy as usual.

Mark Forest is obviously not taking the proceedings too seriously. This is a silly fun movie and his performance reflects this. At least he isn’t embarrassingly wooden. Franco Cobianchi is rather good playing the dual roles of the surprisingly sympathetic Roman emperor and the second-rate actor who is not quite as malleable a dupe as Zullo had hoped for. Jolanda Modio does just fine in the femme fatale role as Clea. Nazzareno Zamperla is fine as Herc’s faithful sidekick Horatius. The problem is Oreste Lionello as Drusius - he’s insanely over-the-top but not particularly funny and soon becomes irritating. This may have been exacerbated by the dubbing so perhaps I’m being unfair to Lionello - maybe he was genuinely funny in Italian. His devotion to his beloved sheep does however provide the off-the-wall quality so essential in an Alfonso Brescia opus.

Retromedia have done a reasonable job with their DVD release. There’s some print damage and on occasions the colour fluctuates just a little but on the whole it’s an OK print and it is in the correct aspect ratio and the transfer is anamorphic - both major pluses for fans of the peplum genre accustomed to seeing horrible butchered pan-and-scanned prints of these types of movies.

If you’re looking for much more extreme examples of Brescia’s enjoyable cinematic  looniness check out Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977) and Amazons vs Supermen (1975).

Magnificent Gladiator is consistently silly but it’s still hugely entertaining fun. Recommended.