04/12/08:
THE LOVES OF HERCULES (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1960) 
Perfectly awful
peplum/Hercules-movie: you know you’re in trouble when leading lady Jayne Mansfield’s prominent bust (forever on the verge of bursting through her togas) commands greater attention than the plot, the action or the special effects!; of course, the fact that the muscular hero is played by her real-life husband – Mickey Hargitay – adds to the fun quotient (of the unintentional kind, that is)…for rarely has there ever been an actor so clueless as to how approach this mythical part!
Usually seen as a blonde, Mansfield here dons a black and a red wig: she appears as a couple of sovereigns – the heroine and an Amazonian (though the latter is technically played by another actress who takes up Mansfield’s appearance via a magic potion in order to ensnare Hargitay). Of mild interest is the fact that the latter has a penchant of disposing of her lovers by having them turned into living trees – as if one needed further proof of how wooden this thing could be, the plot here takes it to a literal level! The chief villainous role in this one is entrusted to Massimo Serato, often a reliable presence in this type of flick, but in this case sporting long curly hair – which only serves to enhance the film’s overriding camp factor. Also in the cast, as one of Serato’s advisors, is Giulio Donnini from the obscure
peplum FRINE, CORTIGIANA D’ORIENTE (1953) – which I watched as part of last month’s “Epic Movie Challenge” (in time for the Easter period); incidentally, I had intended to rent the 5-Disc/7-Film set among which this was included back then but it wasn’t available.
By the way, THE LOVES OF HERCULES was also known as HERCULES VS. THE HYDRA: this monster, which appears fairly on in the game, is one of the worst of its kind ever constructed – what’s the point of having a three-headed menace if lopping one of them off kills it instantly! Indeed, the mechanical creation is so bulky that it can barely move and so obviously fake that one is liable to burst out laughing at the mere sight of it, as I did, thus effectively destroying the illusion of the entire scene! Another hilarious obstacle the hero has to overcome during the course of the film is a meek-looking cow absurdly sprayed black by the penny-pinching film-makers in a lousy attempt to pass it off for a menacing bull!
04/13/08:
THE MEDUSA AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (Alberto De Martino, 1963)
Passable low-brow mythological hokum: Richard Harrison is Perseus – who, rather than the offspring of Zeus, here is the adopted son of Hercules (and an unwitting deposed monarch to boot!). The film provides two villains in Arturo Dominici, an ambitious man who usurps the throne by killing the current ruler and marrying his wife (the scriptwriters must have read “Hamlet”), and Leo Anchoriz as his equally despicable son – who also acts as a rival to Harrison for the heroine’s hand; the latter, then, is the usual lovely sovereign of a rival harassed empire (but who, at least, demonstrates a prowess with bow and arrow).
In this outing, Perseus fights a couple of monsters: a man-eating dragon residing in a lake(!) and the titular paralyzing creature (which, instead of sporting writhing snakes in its hair-do, is a vine-like Cyclops that would better fit the atmosphere of a science-fiction movie, in the vein of the shapeless one-eyed alien seen in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE [1953], than a sword-and-sandal flick); nevertheless, the latter confrontation anticipates the Ray Harryhausen opus CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981). With respect to the human end of the scale, the ongoing dispute is resolved over a long-running duel between Harrison and Anchoriz taking place at the heart of a tournament organized by Dominici.
Director De Martino made a few
peplums before going on to other “Euro-Cult” genres (Spaghetti Western, war, horror,
giallo, etc). Eugenio Bava – father of cult film-maker Mario – served as technical advisor here, presumably contributing the matte work involved in the creation of the special effects. The film’s score is highlighted by a catchy but corny title tune heard over the opening and closing credits.
04/14/08:
ARROWHEAD (Charles Marquis Warren, 1953)
Considering the vast amount of Cavalry-vs.-Indians Westerns made during the genre’s heyday, this emerges as a reasonably engaging entry – thanks to the pleasant Technicolor hues but, even more so, the scenery-chewing antics of its two stars (Charlton Heston and Jack Palance). I’d owned a copy of the bare-bones Paramount DVD for quite some time, but found the perfect opportunity to check it out now in tribute to Heston’s recent passing.
He plays a maverick scout who, in the past, had spent some time with the Apaches; he knows them inside out and is, therefore, indispensable to the Cavalry because he can anticipate what their next move will be. The tribe has ostensibly capitulated and is heading towards the reservation but, when the current chief’s son (Palance) arrives on the scene – having undertaken an education merely to fulfill a prophecy which would make him the savior of his people! – the attacks start anew, thus confirming Heston’s skepticism of the whole deal (and which had practically ostracized him from his office). The film, whose title remains unexplained throughout, generally delivers in the action stakes (even if Heston and Palance’s long-awaited showdown, the ‘war’ being resolved in single hand-to-hand combat between them, is a disappointingly hasty affair) – but is let down by a couple of obligatory romantic rivalries: Heston is torn between half-breed Katy Jurado, who’s wasted, and Mary Sinclair, the widow of the Fort Commander who’s also desired by his successor (Brian Keith).
Heston made a number of such minor genre fare (which, I have to admit, I had all but ignored all these many years) – including another Western penned by Charles Marquis Warren, PONY EXPRESS (1953) – before carving a niche for himself playing larger-than-life roles in a myriad big-budget spectaculars. Having mentioned the writer/director, I recently acquired another Western of his – the well-regarded and, reportedly,
noir-tinged LITTLE BIG HORN (1951) which, naturally, revolves around Custer’s infamous Last Stand.
04/15/08:
DIAMOND HEAD (Guy Green, 1963)
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, glossy soap operas were among Hollywood’s most popular offerings – before such melodramatic stuff became standard TV fare, a status which holds up to this day. These are hardly my kind of genre picture – which, perhaps, explains why I’ve yet to sit through efforts even as acclaimed as PEYTON PLACE (1957)!
Incidentally, given the title’s similarity to another Charlton Heston vehicle (which actually preceded this viewing) – namely the Western ARROWHEAD (1953) – it’s no wonder that this isn’t a reference to anything in particular, and certainly doesn’t come up at all in the script! Anyway, while the film doesn’t have much of a reputation – especially since it came at the height of Heston’s epic phase – I found it surprisingly tolerable (apart from some impossibly corny dance routines from the locals: the narrative is set in Hawaii, to which the star would return for the aptly-named THE HAWAIIANS [1970], which I hopefully also intend to check out in time for this ongoing Heston marathon).
Interestingly, good ol’ Chuck is perhaps at his most unsympathetic here – playing someone who can only be described as selfish, pig-headed and a hypocrite! Besides, given the actor’s controversial latter-day political activity (and which seems to have received undue attention at the time of his passing), it’s worth noting that his character in the film is persuaded to run for a place in the Senate because of his influence in the community – but the eventual campaign is botched due to personal scandals (having forbidden his kid sister Yvette Mimieux to marry local boy James Darren, is implicated in the latter’s violent death, and himself impregnates Hawaiian France Nuyen!).
The cast features a number of current ‘stars’, whose allure would basically vanish by the end of the decade: apart from the afore-mentioned Mimieux, Darren (best-remembered for the blockbuster THE GUNS OF NAVARONE [1961], he would go on to play the bewildered protagonist in Jess Franco’s erotic/cerebral masterpiece VENUS IN FURS [1968]) and Nuyen (she was often paired with Hollywood leading men in such Asian-set romantic dramas), there are George Chakiris (as Darren’s half-brother, who also gets in Heston’s hair by falling for Mimieux himself) and Elizabeth Allen (appearing here as the glamorous sister of Heston’s late wife, and naturally secretly harboring emotions for him, she would later graduate to leading lady for another Hawaiian flick – the John Ford/John Wayne comic romp DONOVAN’S REEF [1963]). An important supporting role, however, is that of veteran Aline MacMahon as the typically indomitable mother figure (of Chakiris and Darren’s characters).
If handled properly, such histrionic stuff can be reasonably entertaining (especially given their predilection for confrontation scenes): this one’s well enough done under the circumstances (with Darren’s untimely demise being handled in a particularly inventive manner) but, for good measure, includes a Freudian dream sequence towards the end! Guy Green was a Brit who, after a career as a cinematographer (winning an Oscar for David Lean’s classic adaptation of GREAT EXPECTATIONS [1946]), graduated to directing: he seemed to specialize in just this type of slick ‘entertainment’ – one of these, LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (1962; also with Mimieux), is being shown on Cable TV for the
nth time this very week-end and which I intend to record – though his work could also go from Oscar-worthy ‘message pictures’ such as THE MARK (1961) and A PATCH OF BLUE (1965), perhaps his most popular effort but which I’ve yet to watch (I do own a recording of it, though), to the notorious gimmicky-yet-indecipherable puzzle THE MAGUS (1968)…
04/15/08:
THE TRIUMPH OF HERCULES (Alberto De Martino, 1964)
Lackluster entry in the prolific
peplum genre – these films may have been designed as mere entertainment fodder but very few examples proved otherwise rewarding. This is an even lesser achievement than THE MEDUSA AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (1963), from the same director and which I watched concurrently; however, it’s basically on the same below-par level of two other such efforts I viewed in the past featuring the same muscle-bound lead, Dan Vadis, namely THE REBEL GLADIATORS (1963) and SPARTACUS AND THE TEN GLADIATORS (1963).
Anyway, the film sees Hercules fighting a tyrant (Pierre Cressoy from FRINE, CORTIGIANA D’ORIENTE [1953]) and saving/loving a damsel-in-distress (“Euro Cult” regular Marilu` Tolo) – nothing new plot-wise, then…except that Cressoy is in cahoots with a witch (glamorous Moira Orfei) so that he’s able to unleash an army of gold-tinted musclemen to cause havoc, but they’re clearly no match for Hercules. Even so, the hero’s strength is sapped by an angry Zeus (via a comical jagged thunderbolt insert) at one point – eventually being restored just in time to prevent Tolo from being fatally spiked! During the climax, then, Orfei plays an optical trick on Vadis but which ends up rebounding on herself – taking up Tolo’s semblance as she’s hanging from a cliff, but Hercules recognizes the true heroine from the color of her eyes and Orfei perishes in the sea instead!
For what it’s worth, the film includes plenty of action sequences – but, more often than not, they're rendered hilarious by way of obvious repeated footage, exaggerated death reactions and clumsy stunt-work.
