Sunday, July 29, 2012

Photo of the Day

Hercules (Kirk Morris) gets to know Princess Virna (Luciana Gilli) in CONQUEROR OF ATLANTIS

This is a fun film but with a few quibbles. The film starts with Herc washing up on shore after a shipwreck (cliché!) and is rescued by a nomadic Arab tribe.

Here are my quick personal notes on this film:

1 - Herc looses his usual gear and wears pants, while still shirtless, throughout the film. IMO, they should have kept Kirk wearing the Hercules clothes. When he wears pants he looked like a pretty awesome Flash Gordon but not a Greek hero. The contrast, Herc vs Arabs or Atlantean, would have been cool but this being one of the last PEPLUM films made (in 1965) and the trend was moving away from all things HERCULEAN well it's not surprising that they made this decision. I wished they didn't.

2 - In this shot, the camel in the back is having some sort of difficulty. The cast probably laughed and had to redo the shot. It's quite funny once you notice it

3 - The Arab tribe, with horses and camels and such, is actually recycled throughout the film, certainly during the opening credits, when we see a procession of the same people walking in front of the camera.

4 - The film is 90 minutes long but Herc and friend only reach Atlantis 40 minutes into the film, which gives the impression of unnecessary padding.

5 - The German trailer, not from the 60s but made for the DVD release, is one of my favorite unintentionally funny trailers ever made. I play it often on PEPLUM TV. You can view it here which I've uploaded at my Youtube channel.

6 - The Something Weird version of this film is horrendous and there's a big ass SWV logo at the bottom right corner. Avoid at all cost.

7 - Someone made a Fan Dub of this in a widescreen version and it's good (a thousand times better than the SWV copy) but sometimes the voices do not match the action. I wonder who made this though.

8 - Location filming is fantastic.

9 - The cast is cute, certainly with Kirk, baby faced Luciana Gilli and the non-threatening Atlantean female guards. Hélène Chanel, who is usually cute, is made to look older in this and is not cute.

10 - The creation of the robotic male soldiers is filled with staggering sexual innuendo, certainly staggering for a family film.

11 - This is one of 4 PEP films Kirk made with Hélène Chanel, with the other three being: MACISTE IN HELL, MACISTE IN THE VALLEY OF THUNDERING ECHO and DESERT RAIDERS (Il dominatore del deserto), which I haven't seen.

12 - I have 4 versions of this film: the awful SWV version in English; a special "Fan Fix" version I created without the SWV logo; the German DVD version, in widescreen; and the mysterious Fan Dub version in widescreen and in English.

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