Musings!

Taur (Joe Robinson) is escorted to Queen Akiba (Bella Cortez) at spearpoint in TAUR THE MIGHTY (1963)

As I've written many times here at the blog, the THOR / TAUR movies starring Joe Robinson were supposed to be Tarzan movies but the estate of E. Rice Burroughs threatened to sue and big changes were made to remove any resemblance to Tarzan. Well, it still sort of looks like it. I like these movies even though I suppose most people wouldn't but there's something fun about this one and THOR AND THE AMAZON WOMEN (1962)—they are Twins Productions. They resemble each other literally like twins. They're so over-the-top I can't help but find them entertaining. Joe Robinson makes an eye-pleasing Hero even though he often looked bored. The beautiful Bella is too nice to be an Evil Queen and, IMO, she's miscast here but it doesn't matter. BTW, Bella Cortez is not her real name.

The director loved playing with the race of the characters. A lot of his movies have a muscular white hero paired with a muscular black companion. And the evil ruler is almost always a beautiful Evil Queen. With all the bondage (his friend almost sends a bound Taur to his death), death traps, rituals, army of female warriors, and that big, bizarre pumping machine in this movie, well, his films look like extremely elaborate fetish movies. 😂 Think of GWENDOLINE (1984) before Gwendoline.

I love the original Italian title: TAUR - IL RE DELLA FORZA BRUTA. Or TAUR - THE KING OF BRUTE FORCE.