Hercules The Invincible/Ercole l’invincibile/The Sons of Hercules in the Land of Darkness (1964)

‘Who has thrown my soldier into the pit of slime?’

Out for a quiet afternoon stroll, Hercules saves an innocent young maiden from a rampaging lion. Local custom usually dictates that he can marry the girl in such circumstances, but she’s a Princess, and her father demands that he slay a dragon before he will consent to the match…

The twelfth entry in the Italian cycle featuring the legendary hero Hercules finds his labours handed to Dan Vadis, and producer-director duties given to cinematographer Alvaro Mancori billed as Al World. Although the heyday of the muscleman craze had obviously passed, the film still boasts decent production values and professional execution.

After carrying out some casual tree surgery, Vadis is wandering about the forest when he’s alerted to danger by the screams of the pretty young Teica (Spela Rozin). She’s nipped off for a quick skinny dip in a nearby river, only to find there’s a roaring lion on hand to break up the party. Quite why she’s so scared is a bit of a mystery (are lions good swimmers?), but Vadis weighs in anyway and strangles the beast to death with his bare hands. The action is quite neatly accomplished, although it does highlight the problem of Vadis’ hair colour. Sometimes it’s light and bleached; at other times it’s almost black. It was probably an attempt to match up with his fight double, but why not get the stuntman to change his hair? And the little blonde beard he sports was probably not the best idea.

‘Take the first left past the temple and the second right past the Cyclops cave and you can’t miss it…’

Anyway, Vadis recuperates from his wounds in the local village and gets a visit from King Tedaeo (Ugo Sasso) and his entourage. Sasso explains the local custom and why Vadis doesn’t qualify as his son-in-law unless he takes care of that pesky dragon that’s been bringing down real estate values in the local neighbourhood. Vadis and Rozin are in love, of course, and the big man readily agrees. The original version of the film may have established a passage of time by this point, however, in the dubbed version it appears to be almost immediately afterwards. This makes the couple’s devotion to each other ridiculously sudden and unconvincing. To be fair, killing a lion with your bare hands and saving her life is quite probably a swift way to a young girl’s heart, but I can’t see it working for most men as a romantic technique.

So, after accepting the hand of Rozin as a bribe (you really do have to question Sasso’s parenting skills!), Vadis is off to see the local Prophetess (Olga Sobelli, billed as Sand Beanty!). She informs him where the dragon’s at, gives him a magic spear to kill it and mentions the powers of the beast’s tooth, which she wants for herself. Having already got the weapon, he blows her off and leaves with her curses ringing his ears. Vadis dispatches the beast and harvests the bicuspid in question, even though there is a distinct possibility that the creature is appearing courtesy of another film. After all, not many dragons have a golden fleece as part of their home furnishings.

‘You must tell me the name of your hairdresser.’

But, as in most films of this kind, there’s more than one task on the hero’s job list. While he’s away killing the dragon, the village is raised to the ground by warlord Kebaol (Ken Clark), and Sasso and Rozin are taken to the kingdom of the evil Queen Etel (Carla Calò). Hooking up with sole survivor of the massacre, and cowardly comic relief, Barbar (Jon Simons), Vadis must journey there to save his beloved and bring about the end of Calò’s reign of terror.

Yes, this is just another reworking of very familiar story elements from films of this kind, but there are a few variations. Of course, there are a lot of slaves who need liberating, we see the ‘lost city’ dancing girls on their never-ending tour, and Calò has built her residence inside an active volcano (how did she get the necessary permits?).

The Javelin final had reached a crucial stage…

However, her only initial interest in our musclebound hero is having him torn apart by elephants in the arena (or in the throne room, actually; I guess it does double-duty). She does warm up to him after he saves her life though (guys, it always works!) but, just as predictably, he’s not interested. Why? Because she doesn’t ‘have eyes the colour of periwinkles’! (Kudos to the US dubbing crew for that one!). Everything ends in the predictable boiling cauldron of liquified strawberry jam (sorry, hot lava), but the audience is likely to experience more fun getting there than with most of the other entries in the series.

This certainly isn’t a very high-quality piece of storytelling, but it is more fun than a lot of its contemporaries. Vadis certainly looks the part and is decent in the action scenes, although he does look amiably bemused in a lot of the dialogue exchanges. I guess there could have been a language barrier with the Italian cast and crew? He signed on for ‘Hercules vs. The Giant Warriors/The Triumph of Hercules/Il trionfo di Ercole’ (1964) nevertheless. The most interesting aspect of the story probably revolves around Simons’ comedy relief. Yes, he’s incredibly annoying in the early stages and remains clumsy and nervous throughout but, by the last act, he’s engaged with the action and performing an active part on the side of the angels. Not often the comic relief gets a character arc in any kind of film!

‘Blimey, I could just murder a pint right now…’

Vadis was of Greek descent; born in China under the name of Constantine Daniel Vafiadis. He’d served in the US Navy was a member of Mae West’s ‘Muscleman Revue’ in the late 1950s, before breaking into film with the assistance of fellow bodybuilder Gordon Mitchell. After the strongman films petered out, he transitioned into Spaghetti Westerns and later was a familiar face in small roles in some of Clint Eastwood’s big hits of the 1970s, including ‘The Gauntlet’ (1977), ‘Every Which Way But Loose’ (1978) and ‘Bronco Billy’ (1980). The work dried up after that, and he was found dead in his car in the desert in June 1987 after an accidental drug overdose.

There wasn’t a great deal of life left in the Italian muscleman genre by this point, but this is still an undemanding and vaguely enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes.