THE DEFEAT OF THE BARBARIANS (1962)

Beware: this summary (for reasons detailed later) may not be accurate. The Bavarian Prince Rudolf is caretaker to the royal heir, 10-year-old Albert. Baron Berthold is sent off to deal with Manfredi, a possible threat to Albert, who rules in Italy. However, Manfredi will have none of this; he sends the Baron back to Rudolf while keeping his daughter Grenda hostage to ensure that Rudolf will not send troops against Manfredi. But Grenda turns out to be happy where she is with Manfredi. Meanwhile, Manfredi's deputy Riccardo, who has his own dreams of power, sees Grenda on the sly and soon hatches a plan to make Manfredi think that Albert has died. Manfredi soon discovers that, not only is this a lie, bur Rudolf's men are on the move against him. In the middle of all this royal intrigue, we meet the lowly but hunky Astolfo (Ken Clark, pictured) who has worked his way up to become a squire to Manfredi. For half the movie, I had assumed that Manfredi was the villain, but come to find out, he's actually the good guy—and after he gets killed in battle, we find out that Rudolf may not have Albert's best interests at heart. Luckily, Astolfo becomes our moral compass, and over the course of a couple of distinctly lackluster battles, Riccardo and Grenda are defeated, Albert is crowned king, and Astolfo becomes the royal protector.

Trying to give this movie a fair review is impossible. The original print ran nearly 90 minutes, but the only print available (on YouTube) is just 68 minutes. From what I can figure out, the movie never got a theatrical release in the U.S. This version, which is presented with the title "Scourge of the Barbarians," appears to be a TV edit, made to air in a 90 minute slot. It's also a pan and scan print, though it doesn't actually pan—there are scenes in which two people are talking and we see neither one of them, only the landscape between the two. I'm not sure what's been cut, but big chunks of the movie are gone, which may be why I initially misidentified the good guys and the bad guys. I'm guessing that a lot of Ken Clark's performance wound up on the cutting room floor since he is first billed but is basically a supporting performer with less screen time that Manfredi, Riccardo, or the Baron. Clark, whose high point in Hollywood was probably as the tall blond sailor Stewpot in SOUTH PACIFIC, has developed a minor cult following for his work in B-movies—sci-fi, adventure and spy films. So it's disappointing that he gets relatively little screen time in this bastardized print of what may have been a perfectly fine Italian adventure movie. If a complete print ever shows up, I'll be more than willing to revisit my review, but until then, I can't recommend this odd little mess of a movie. [YouTube]