Hercules vs. The Giant Warriors/The Triumph of Hercules/Il trionfo di Ercole (1964)

‘In all my life, I have never witnessed a more frightening spectacle.’

As he lays dying, a murdered king charges two of his subjects to find his old friend, Hercules. The kingdom and his daughter are now at the mercy of his unscrupulous nephew, and there is no-one else he trusts to safeguard their future. The legendary hero comes running, but he finds himself pitted against black magic and a group of mythical golden giants…

Dan Vadis returns after ‘Hercules The Invincible/Ercole l’invincibile (1964) to flex his considerable muscle and battle the forces of darkness for director Alberto de Martino and cinematographer-producer Pier Ludovico Pavoni. Pleasingly, the film retains the mythological aspects employed in Vadis’ first outing, and this helps make the viewing experience more enjoyable than some of the other films in the unofficial series.

The story begins in the thick of the action. Soldiers loyal to the King’s nephew, Milo (Pierre Cressoy) are busy raising a village to the ground, but their fun is short-lived when the monarch himself makes the scene. King Pandeone (Gaetano Quartararo) is not amused by Cressoy’s antics and exiles him from the kingdom, only to find himself at the business end of a spear, courtesy of a nod from his brother’s son. With his dying breath, Quartararo charges villager Erlone (Jacques Stany) to fetch Hercules. Stany finds Vadis on the banks of the Hellespont where he’s building a temple to Hera. The big man is happy to answer the villager’s call for help; after all, it doesn’t look like he’s getting very far with his construction project.

‘These Olympic exhibition events just keep getting weirder…’

Meanwhile, like all naughty little boys, Cressoy has gone to ‘fess up to mum, Pasiphae, played by Moira Orfei. However, as she lives in a cave and is a mistress of the Black Arts, she’s not inclined to be too harsh on the poor lad. Instead, she helps him out with a present; a sacred knife that can summon the Seven Sons of Juno’s sister. These guys may not be sparkling conversationalists but they are handy in a scrap and are certainly trendsetters with their bald heads and all-over gold paint jobs. But first Cressoy has to keep up appearances, so he organises a tournament where the kingdom’s mightiest warriors can compete for the hand of the late King’s daughter, the Princess Ate (Marilù Tolo).

Things start well for Cressoy, with his lieutenant Gordio (Howard Ross) making the early running, but then he’s challenged by arrogant visiting Prince Abdur (Pietro Capanna). The two face-off and fight in a pretty unique chariot vs horse match-up within the small arena. This proves to be the most exciting sequence in the picture, and the action is still impressive by today’s standards. It’s especially remarkable, given that it’s clear that the two actors are doing the vast majority of the stunt work. Sure, doubles may have been employed for the long shots, but there’s little doubt that it’s Capanna and Ross who are displaying considerable skills of driving and horsemanship. It looks genuinely dangerous when you bear in mind that the health and safety precautions were probably somewhat less than stringent.

🎵 Purple Haze in my brain… 

Despite this exciting exhibition, the mourning Tolo looks like she’d rather be anywhere else, but then Vadis turns up to fight the winner. A few words from our silver-tongued slab of muscle and she suddenly perks right up, particularly when he saves her life from an attack by deadly rubber spikes during their joint lap of honour. The subsequent drama revolves around possession of the sacred knife and the ability to unleash the golden giants. Naturally, Vadis goes up against them a couple of times, and the actor had to do his own stunts as there was apparently no-one large enough to double for him! Thankfully, he acquits himself very well, and the fights are surprisingly well designed and executed. Vadis also seems far more comfortable with dialogue than in his previous appearance in the role, and the clean-shaven face was a wise grooming choice.

The English dub seems typically confused about whether this is the Roman or Greek incarnation of the mythical muscleman; one minute he’s hanging out at the Hellespont (Greek), the next he’s the son of Jove (Roman). It also refers more than once to the seven golden warriors, although there only seems to be six of them. It’s fair to speculate that the film may have had a lower budget than previous entries in the series. The sets are on a smaller scale, and there are fewer extras to populate them. Still, director de Martino keeps things moving at a brisk pace and delivers a reasonable level of action and adventure.

The attempts to cure her insomnia were getting a little out of hand…

Unlike many of his type, Vadis managed a reasonable roll of credits after the craze for muscles had passed. Regular appearances in Spaghetti Westerns led to a supporting role in ‘High Plains Drifter’ (1973) and further Clint Eastwood projects such as ‘The Gauntlet’ (1977) and ‘Any Which Way You Can’ (1980), among others. He even featured on an episode of hit network TV show ‘Starsky and Hutch.’ Most of Tolo’s first leading roles were in ‘sword and sandal’ flicks, possibly because of her passing resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor who starred in ‘Cleopatra’ (1963) around that time. More than Vadis, however, she went onto a varied and prolific film career. She took the female leads in Eurospy pictures ‘Espionage In Lisbon’ (1965), ‘To Skin A Spy/Avec la peau des autres’ (1966) and ‘The Big Blackout’ (1966) and followed those with Giallo films such as ‘Trumpets of the Apocalypse/Murder By Music’ (1969), ‘Kill the Fatted Calf and Roast it’ (1970), and ‘My Dear Killer’ (1972). She also worked on one of horror maestro Mario Bava’s excursions into the Old West – ‘Roy Colt and Winchester Jack’ (1970) – and with Richard Burton on ‘Bluebeard’ (1972). She also starred in many other Italian movies of the period before retiring in the mid-1980s.

A slight cut above the usual muscleman antics and the last of the Italian Hercules cycle of any real quality.