‘Who said you could sit among my apples?’
After the accidental death of the king, his eldest daughter assumes the throne of Mersabad. However, certain factions plot to assassinate her, and their plans come to the attention of a mighty warrior…
More palace intrigue and strongman duties for the heroic Maciste, this time appearing in the person of Italian-America bodybuilder Mark Forest. Michele Lupo directs from a script by Lionello De Felice and Ernesto Guida.
The kingdom of Mersabad is about a get a new monarch with the impending coronation of Princess Thalima (Scilla Gabel). However, when she announces at court that she intends to follow her late father’s just and liberal policies, it doesn’t go down well with Prince Oniris (Erno Crisa) and the rest of the aristocracy. Meanwhile, shady fixer Vittorio Sanipoli is busy recruiting seven mercenaries at the behest of a mysterious paymaster, planning to have them replace gladiators at the celebration of Gabel’s ascension.
While awaiting orders, Sanipoli’s men trash a tavern, which happens to be the local of the warrior Maciste (Forest). He rushes to the scene but arrives too late to engage the villains. Trailing them to the city, he manages to join the gang, even saving the life of the young Menides (Maurizio Conti). He soon discovers they plan to abduct Gabel on the eve of her coronation, ensuring that her sister Rasia (José Greci) will take the throne. Unconscious after being drugged, it seems he can do nothing to prevent the plan’s success.
Well-paced and breezy addition to the Peplum genre, which fails to mesh some comedy with its more serious intent but otherwise delivers an entertaining enough package. The concept of an evil version of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (1960) is well-handled for the most part, although inevitably, none of the members are rewarded with any significant character development. Among their ranks are several familiar faces from Peplum; Alfio Caltabiano, Claudio Scarchilli, Pietro Ceccarelli and Dan Vadis. Most were limited to supporting roles throughout the cycle, but Vadis graduated to portray both Hercules and Ursus.
This entry in the cycle is particularly notable for some energetic, well-staged swordplay and a surprisingly smart script. If the story’s events often seem like just a build-up to Forest facing off against the bad guys in the arena at the end, yes, of course, they are, but there are enough story threads and characters to keep things interesting on the way. There’s also no evil Queen for a change. Gabel may have a hard stare that can freeze a flaming torch at a hundred paces, but it’s reserved for wrong-doers and the entitled nobles of her court. Sister Greci may make some bad decisions and get to sit in the big chair, but she’s blinded with love for Crisa and has a complete change of heart by the climax.
It’s also unusual that there’s no ‘trial of strength’ for Forest, in the arena or otherwise. In fact, little is made of the character’s super strength; the action focused instead on his combat abilities, which reflects the film’s original title. He does duke it out with Vadis in a waterfall in a memorable scene, but it’s mostly about the swordplay. Judging by what’s on screen, a greater level of technical expertise was available for handling the weapons than usual. There are also a few surprisingly gory moments where Lupo’s camera lingers at the moment of death. Nothing is that graphic, but such kills tended to be mostly bloodless at the time. Some commentators have pointed out that several individual moments foreshadow events in Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning ‘Gladiator’ (2000), and the number of them lends some credibility to this argument.
Unfortunately, some of this serious drama is undermined by an overuse of dumb comedy. Forest acquires sidekick Wambo (Jon Chevron) at the tavern, and rather inexplicably, he’s allowed to join gladiator training. Lupo then allows the actor to mug outrageously for the camera and gives him a succession of stupid moments, including a sword fight with Cleopatra, the chimp and taking part in one battle disguised as a sheep! He also attends the final scenes in the arena dressed in drag for no apparent reason. Thankfully, all this tiresome nonsense is not enough to derail things completely. There’s nothing wrong with trying to bring a lighter touch to the genre, of course, but when the rest of your film includes scenes of innocent villagers being tortured, raped and slaughtered, it could be argued that it’s a little out of place.
Forest makes an adequately personable hero, although he certainly doesn’t display the charisma of the best strongmen of the Peplum era. Vadis has a shot at being included as one of them, even if he has little acting here to do here, and his debut as Hercules in ‘Hercules The Invincible/Ercole invincible/The Sons of Hercules in the Land of Darkness (1964) was more than a little shaky. Still, he improved by leaps and bounds and was pretty effective in his later muscleman roles.
The production values are also good, allowing for a decent level of spectacle, even if the film doesn’t boast the large-scale sets of the best in the genre. Curiously the production company behind this effort is credited as ‘Leone Films’, so it would be reasonable to assume some involvement from world-famous director Sergio Leone. He was still two years away from ‘A Fistful of Dollars/Per un pugno di dollari’ (1964) but had been active in the industry for some years and had already debuted as a director with the superior historical epic ‘The Colossus of Rhodes/Il colosso di Rodi’ (1961). However, Leone was apparently less than impressed with the Peplum cycle in general and the producers who offered him the opportunity to participate. ‘I warned them that if they so much as mentioned the word ‘Maciste’ I would spit…’ he was quoted as saying in later years. So, it seems the production company’s name is likely just a coincidence.
A better example of Peplum than most.
Mark David Welsh 