HERCULES AND THE TYRANTS OF BABYLON (1964)

3000 years ago, Babylon was ruled by a triumvirate of three siblings: Salman Osar is the bald, goateed sinister-looking brother; Azzur is the older, bearded, and slightly wiser brother; Taneal is the sexy sister who looks out only for herself. They build up their state laborers by having their army capture citizens of surrounding lands to be slaves, and among a batch of newly acquired female slaves is rumored to be Esperia, Queen of the Hellenes, though she hasn't yet been identified. The brutal Salman Osar just wants to have his way with her; Azzur wants to marry her for diplomatic reasons; Taneal wants her dead, seeing her as a threat. Then Phaleg, the king of Assyria, presents himself to the Babylonian rulers and gives them heaps of riches in exchange for all their female slaves. He claims to want them to repopulate Assyria but he really just wants Esperia. But the rulers are upset by reports that one man is acting as a protector to vulnerable folks in the region. Sure enough, legendary muscle man Hercules is doing said protecting, and we see him single-handedly stop a raiding party by tossing huge boulders at the soldiers from the hills. But Hercules is also on a personal mission: to save Esperia, who is apparently his mistress, from both slavery and forced marriage. 

Despite its lackluster title, this is one of the better sword and sandal movies of the peplum era. It has a strong and clear narrative, decent acting, a muscular lead, attractive women, and a couple of nice battle scenes. Hercules is played by Peter Lupus (pictured), a bodybuilder and actor best known for his role in the original Mission Impossible TV series (and credited here as Rock Stevens). He has a very impressive body and his acting is a notch above most other muscleman actors; he's good in most of the fight scenes as well (he kicks ass and takes names), though no one could have brought any sense of realism to the silly boulder-tossing scenes—he's better when tossing people and using weapons. Helga Liné is very good as Taneal; Anna Maria Poloni, as Esperia, is attractive but remains a flat character, and Taneal's role is stronger. Two scenes stand out. One, a riff on the famous "I am Spartacus!" scene has the female slaves tied to stakes in the boiling sun, and when asked which one is the queen, they all start yelling, "I am the queen!" The other is a battle between Hercules and three champions which is supposed to be for show until Herc discovers that one of the champion's clubs is actually a spiked mace. Finally, a point I've touched on in previous posts. It is difficult to separate the relative worth of a movie (in terms of recommending it to others) from the experience of watching it. This, like so many peplum films, was shot in widescreen but is generally only available in a pan-and-scan print (or, even worse, a squeezed distorted print), and it's usually not in very good shape. This one is good enough for me to consider watching it again if it shows up in a clean, widescreen presentation. [DVD]