HERCULES VS. MOLOCH—aka CONQUEST OF MYCENAE (1963)

Earthquakes cause the city of Mycenae to collapse in flaming destruction. The dying king, convinced that the city's worship of the dark god Moloch (using human sacrifices) has caused the destruction, asks Queen Demeter to move the city to a new location and allow its people to go back to worshiping the Earth Mother goddess. He also asks the pregnant queen to take his first born daughter Medea with her. Twenty years later, the worship of the Earth Goddess is allowed, but Queen Demeter still encourages the worship of Moloch, especially since her son was born horribly disfigured and she has installed him as the incarnation of Moloch. He remains hidden away in an underground chamber, wearing a scary metal mask (pictured at left). He is surrounded by half-naked women in chains (whom it's implied that he tortures), and his mom periodically brings him sacrifices from conquered lands. Strong man Glaucus from the threatened city of Tiryns poses as a conquered slave in order to infiltrate the city. In Mycenae, he calls himself Hercules (just because he can, I guess) and he's offered a job with the Queen's guard even as he makes contact with a group of resistance fighters. But when he clashes with Mycenaen general Penthius who tries to assault Medea (the Queen wants them to marry against Medea's wishes), Glaucus is tossed in with the other slaves in the gladiator pool, gets friendly with Medea, and has to try and save her when the Queen decides she'd make a good sacrifice. The climax is, as the title has prepared us for, a battle between Glaucus and Moloch.

This is a decent example of the "muscleman in loincloths" genre, with one major irritant in that they bother to have the lead guy call himself Hercules just so they could legitimately use the name in the title. The alternate title is more to the point, though even that isn't quite right—Mycenae is never really conquered; the entire time, it's run by royalty (some good, some bad) and at the end, it's not so much conquered as freed. But these movies rise and fall largely on their hero and Gordon Scott is fine. He played the 'real' Hercules later and was a very serious Tarzan. He's got the physique and some actual acting talent, a combination not always present in these films. This has the typical B-movie production values, and it looks like some of the special effects (death and destruction mostly) were inserted from other films. We don't see too much of Moloch, and when we do, the mask is actually more effective than the face make-up. The attempted sacrifice of Medea at the climax is nicely done. Pretty much a run-of-the-mill peplum flick. [YouTube]