First things first: 1) There is no one named Colossus in this movie. There is no one who even looks like he might be called Colossus; 2) The movie is mostly a comedy, a mild parody of the typical sword and sandal film. We meet our heroes, two veterans of the Trojan War, at an athletic competition that looks more like a frat boy free-for-all than an Olympics game. Glaucus (Ed Fury) is a lithe blond muscle man and Pirro (Rod Taylor) is his less beefy but still hunky buddy. That night, during an actual frat boy (or ancient Greek equivalent) free-for-all in a tavern, two merchants hire the buddies to board a ship and keep watch on the treasure being transported. But it's a trick: the merchants drug the crew and take them to an island where the merchants collect treasures left on the beach and leave the men. Our heroes have been caught up in what might be called a human trafficking scheme. The tribe of Amazon women on the island have turned their men into domestic workers while the women are the ruling class and the warriors. We see two men doing laundry and bitching quite queenily about being stuck at home doing housework. The kidnapped sailors are used as manual labor slaves (and, we assume, sex slaves on the side). Glaucus strikes sparks with Antiope whom he first sees swimming nude, but the cranky Melitta wants him put to death for being too cocky. Antiope saves him by claiming him as her concubine, so to speak. But there is a dangerous context here: the Amazon Queen of the movie's title (a supporting character at best) is thinking of giving up the throne, perhaps partly because the queen must be chaste. Antiope and Alitta are in the running for the title, and Alitta steals the Girdle of Aphrodite which is part of the transference ceremony for the title of queen. Pirro sees her hide it and he takes it, blackmailing Melitta into claiming him as her lover. Eventually, pirates arrive to plunder the island by using tall palm trees to catapult themselves into the walled city, and the enslaved men help the Amazons defend themselves, leading to, perhaps, a more equal society, and to the queen deciding it's OK for the leader of the Amazons to have sex.
My plot details differ from the details in some other online summaries, and I can't actually vouch for the accuracy of my summary because there were occasional plotholes and unexplained bits of business. But plot details aren't terribly important here when you've got the following: hunky men in togas and women in outfits that expose one breast (albeit covered with colored silk); a man fighting a bear; three men in skimpy loincloths leading a production number with choreography that reminded me of “Cool” from West Side Story (pictured); a pirate who says he's from Southern Greece and then proceeds to claim some of the Amazons by saying, "Y'all is my women now!" (That may have been a deliberate joke, but it's hard to tell.) Ed Fury and Rod Taylor make a nice buddy team. Fury is a somewhat colorless hero, but Taylor is quite game for the rowdy comedy—he even gets to be a little femme when he gives fashion tips to the Amazons. Sadly, his familiar voice is dubbed by another actor, and all the dubbing is terrible. An actress who goes by the name Dorian Gray plays Melitta. The score is quite bizarre (possibly on purpose) with snatches of cocktail hour music heard next to more traditional action movie music. The pan-and-scanned print on the Alpha video I watched is in awful shape, and I liked this just enough to wish there was a legit widescreen version available. If you give yourself over to the ridiculous proceedings, you’ll eventually find yourself smiling and not feeling too guilty when it's over. [DVD]
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