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Italy
| 1959, 1961
Directors:
Carlo Campogalliani
Giacomo Gentilomo & Sergio Corbucci
Starring
Steve Reeves, Chelo Alonso
Arturo Dominici, Gordon Scott
Leonora Ruffo, Gianna Maria Canale
Color
/ Not Rated
BARBARIANS:
100 Min.
VAMPIRES:
91 Min.
Format: DVD
Double Feature Disc / R0 - NTSC
Wild
East Productions
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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Both
films |
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6
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4 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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"Extra
Cheese" icon applies only to GOLIATH AND THE
VAMPIRES |
The two great stars of Italian
pepla,
Americans Steve Reeves
and Gordon Scott, now reside on Mount Olympus...
Reeves passed away in 2000; Scott died in April
2007 at age 80. Sadly, relatively few titles in
the "Sword and Sandal" genre have found
their way onto Region 1 DVD in the past decade,
to include many of the brawny duo's most popular
films. Despite a recent effort by Retromedia to
address this lapse, the bulk of peplum pics most
easily found are the beat-to-hell, horribly panned
and scanned offerings of various cheapjack public
domain outfits. Now Wild East Productions (a tiny
niche outfit principally concerned with spaghetti
westerns) has stepped up to the plate with a double
feature disc pairing two of Reeves' and Scott's
more entertaining screen adventures.
1959's
Goliath and the Barbarians
(Terror Of The Barbarians on Italian screens;
Hercules, Terror Of The Huns in Germany):
Reeves bestrode the B-movie world as a colossus
after Hercules
(1958) conquered international box-offices, so
it was a given he'd end up playing essentially
the same character for the rest of his career.
In this film, based loosely on a figure from Italian
folk history, Reeves is Emiliano, a freedom fighter
harassing the barbarian army that invaded and
enslaved his homeland. He takes up the sword to
avenge the sacking of Verona and the murder of
his father, a prominent citizen of the town. While
slowly assembling a rebel force in the deep woods,
Emiliano strikes at his enemies via one-man raids,
dressing in a clawed-and-fanged animal costume
(something like a lion) to instill fear in the
barbarian troops. The scheme works, as legends
of a merciless, super-strong monster called "Goliath"
begin to spread among the invaders. In response,
the local barbarian commander has a fort constructed
in Emiliano's area of operations and a sustained
hunt for the fabled 'terrorist' is launched.
"Goliath" ambushes
and kills quite a few of the barbarian soldiers
single-handedly, but eventually Emiliano is captured
simply because he's the biggest, buffest dude
in the land... Who else could it be? Protesting
his innocence as a simple woodcutter, he must
pass seemingly impossible tests of strength (like
having each arm lashed to a horse and the animals
try to pull him apart) if he wants to live. By
the barbarians' own code, should Emiliano survive
the trial he must be set free. Rooting for him
is an unexpected ally — Londo (Chelo Alonso),
smokin' hot daughter of the enemy commander, who
has fallen in love with Emiliano and his 17-inch
biceps.
I probably
shouldn't have liked this film as much as I did.
It doesn't really offer anything new plot-wise;
the production is a bit too obviously stagebound
(the forest sets are only a step up from those
seen in the original Star Trek series)
and there's more political squabbling among the
barbarian war captains than hack-and-slash action.
Beyond Emiliano's superhuman strength (not explained,
other than he obviously works out a lot) there
aren't any fantastical elements. Yet the flick
kept me entertained... I had fun with it, which
is all I ask of a movie of this kind. The atypical
setting — northern Italy in the Dark Ages, nearly
two centuries after the fall of the western Roman
Empire — heightened the appeal, and it boasts
a pair of hissable villains in Arturo
Dominici
(Bava's Black
Sunday) and Livio
Lorenzon (Fury of the Pagans).
Cuban spitfire Alonso, who reminded me of a Latina
Halle Berry, is delectable eye candy who can make
even pepla dance routines interesting. (No small
feat, that!) Reeves, of course, plays Goliath
exactly as he did Hercules, albeit with a less
grouchy disposition. It was amusing to see him
as a costumed superhero of sorts (for part of
the film, anyway).
1961's
Goliath and the Vampires,
AKA Maciste Contro Il Vampiro ("Maciste
Against The Vampires"): This one's a bit
different in that it jettisons the usual palace
intrigue in favor of enthusiastic silliness, with
the accent on fantasy elements and styrofoam props.
The plot's about as basic as you can get... Monster
massacres hero's people and kidnaps his girlfriend;
hero vows to rescue the lady fair and exact revenge.
The monster in this case is a blood-drinking sorcerer
named Kobrak, who cruelly reigns over the island
nation of Salminak from behind the scenes. (Since
he's the only "vampire" in the entire
film, shouldn't the title be singular? Oh well.)
Kobrak's seaborne raiders snatch all the women
from peaceful coastal hamlets — either for their
blood or to be sold as slaves — and brutally slaughter
everyone else. Once at sea, the captured females
are sorted and the undesirables immediately disposed
of. ("Throw the old women to the sharks!")
When Goliath returns home to find his village
wiped out and main squeeze (Leonora Ruffo of Hercules
in the Haunted World) abducted, he heads straight
for Salminak with no more plan in mind than 'find
bad guy, kick ass, rescue girl.'
He may not be the most astute
strategist, our Goliath, but when you've got the
strength of twenty men you don't really need to
be!
Goliath
isn't in Salminak's capital for two whole
minutes before he breaks bad, beating the crap
out of a platoon of soldiers in a bid to free
captives from the slave market. This rash act
draws attention to himself, immediately branding
him a wanted man before he's had a chance to learn
anything. Luckily Goliath finds an ally in Kurtik
(Jacques Sernas), the swordsman/alchemist who
leads the resistance movement against Kobrak.
Kurtik explains that Kobrak is building an army
of faceless zombies — "robots with blood"
— with which the undead wizard intends to conquer
the world. Only a selfless paladin of incredible
strength can hope to thwart this evil scheme...
Earnestly goofy, Goliath
and the Vampires is every bit as dumb as
its bone-headed hero but a cheesily fun flick
all the same. Other than the inevitable palace
dance number (which for some unknown reason movie
producers viewed as an absolutely essential pepla
ingredient), it's a fast-paced fantasy adventure
chock full of brawling action and populated with
assorted weird creatures — along with Kobrak and
his creepy army of wax-faced zombies there's a
race of underground-dwelling blue-skinned men
(!) and a giant rubber crab-spider beastie in
a torture pit. For what is ostensibly a kiddie
flick it's surprisingly violent... A hapless villager
gets an arrow in the eye; a man is impaled on
(rubbery) iron spikes; Kobrak bloodily claws open
a woman's throat; even Goliath's sidekick, the
plucky young orphan boy (who's in the story just
for the children in the audience to identify with),
gets killed. As for the action, Goliath typically
fights forty or fifty dudes at a time, never armed
with sword or spear. Instead of using conventional
weapons he just picks up something huge and heavy
and bashes guys with it.*
He also whips out some 'chain-fu' a la Reeves
in Hercules
Unchained. (His patented 'stiff-arm/spinning
top' maneuver is quite laughable, it should be
said, like something out of Hong Kong Phooey.)
The only time Goliath goes mano a mano with an
opponent is at the end, when he faces archenemy
Kobrak in a barehanded death match — only Kobrak
has shapeshifted into an exact duplicate of our
hero, matching his strength. Goliath must battle
himself! This sequence, the kind notoriously hard
to pull off before the advent of CGI, is actually
quite well shot. (Gordon Scott had a good body/stunt
double.)
Speaking of Scott, he isn't
really given a whole lot to do in this pic other
than flex and fight. A terrific Tarzan in the
late 1950s, he was arguably the best actor of
all the pepla musclemen but doesn't get the opportunity
to show that here. In Vampires
his Goliath is just a big dumb ox with a compassionate
heart and an exceptional talent for pummeling
people with large, unwieldy objects. (Hmmm...
I suppose that could be said of all Sword
and Sandal heroes!) Nonetheless, it's enough.
Even when reduced to monosyllables Scott had more
screen charisma than most of his beefcake/he-man
contemporaries combined.
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| *
After being captured, Goliath is taunted by his
guards to demonstrate his physical prowess. He then
calmly pulls down the ceiling Samson-style, grabbing
up a big chunk of rubble to batter his way to freedom. |
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In past years Wild East DVDs were available exclusively
through the company's website and usually in only
very limited pressings. Sometime recently Wild
East titles began to be listed on Amazon ("New"
as opposed to strictly "Third Party",
i.e., used). Stealthily flying under my radar,
this Goliath double feature disc has been for
sale on Amazon since October of 2007.
By all accounts Wild East is an extremely small
"Mom & Pop" operation, so I was quite
pleased by the professional-looking packaging.
The DVD itself is a two-sided "flipper",
with a movie per side. Happily, both films are
in their original widescreen aspect ratio ("TotalScope")
— truly the only way to watch a peplum.
Less happily, neither is 16x9 enhanced.
Of
the two features, Barbarians
fares best visually overall; colors are mildly
faded and most scenes exhibit a brownish tinge
yet print damage is minimal. Vampires,
on the other hand, is much more faded-looking
and the source print in considerably rougher shape.
It's still quite watchable, however. The mono
audio tracks for both titles —
dubbed English only, although the Barbarians
print has Italian credits —
are regrettably flat and tinny-sounding, but suffice.
(Vampires has the
edge in aural clarity.) For supplements each film
comes with a still gallery of international lobby
cards and its American theatrical trailer. 1/10/08
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