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Hercules against the Moon Men
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| Year: |
1964
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Director: |
Giancarlo Gentilomo
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| Stars: |
Alan Steel, Jany Clair, Delia D'Alberti, Anna Maria Polani, Jean-Pierre Honoré, Nando Tamberlani, Stefano Carletti, Roberto Ceccacci, Anna Maria Dionisi, Attilo Dottesio, Franco Morici, Paola Piretti
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| Genre: |
Action, Fantasy |
| Rating: |
  5 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
In Ancient Greece, the land of Samar is under a terrible curse and is forced by entities from the Moon to periodically sacrifice their some of their citizens to appease them. The Queen (Delia D'Alberti) is content to let this situation continue, although she doesn't let on to her people, even as her chief advisor Claudis (Nando Tamberlani) implores her to look for a way out of this arrangement. Claudis decides to take matters into his own hands and sends for mythical strongman Hercules (Alan Steel) to help out in the struggle, but when the Queen discovers this, she despatches her finest soldiers to slow him down - in fact, to kill him. However, Hercules lives up to his reputation and makes fast work of beating the soldiers - could he be enough to beat the Moon Men as well?
Well, what do you think? Let's get this straight: the United States had cowboys, Mexico had wrestlers, Japan had giant monsters, India had musicals, China had kung fu, and Italy... well Italy had sword and sandal epics, of which Hercules against the Moon Men was an example of the fantasy side of things. Written by director Giacomo Gentilomo, Angelo Sangermano, Arpad DeRiso and Nino Scolaro, this was a Maciste movie, as evinced by its Italian title Maciste e la Regina de Samar, but for us English speakers Hercules was pretty much the only muscleman of Greek or Roman myth we knew.
So Hercules it is, here played by second division, shaven-chested weightlifter Alan Steel. Not that his presence makes much difference to the plot, which is pretty standard as these things go, with its evil queen, one big man beating a horde of little men and fantastical overtones (under the evil influence of Uranus - smirk) to liven things up. Herc gets involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the Queen when he finally meets with Claudis, but they are being spied on, so when they escape down the secret passage, Claudis is unlucky enough to be speared by a booby trap (how come he didn't know that was there before?) and our hunk of hero falls through a trapdoor into a pit that is filling up with water. There's a Wile E. Coyote vs Road Runner dynamic between Herc and the Queen, in that whenever she tries to trap him and kill him as the Moon Men have instructed her, Herc manages to escape.
Claudis may be dead, but his daughter Agar (any relation to John Agar?) lives on to continue his work, and she takes quite the shine to Hercules (as if he wasn't shiny enough already). There's a subplot about the Queen planning on sacrificing her own sister, the Princess (Anna Maria Polani), to kick start the advancing reign of the Moon Men on planet Earth, and the Princess is involved with Derax (Jean-Pierre Honoré) who singularly fails to save her just about every time she's imperilled. The special effects mostly consist of coloured lights, and the costumes for the bad guys are unusual, in particular the rock men who look as if a well-placed finger could knock them over. Herc fools the Queen into thinking he's under her spell, and this all leads up to a confrontation between our hero and the villains (although you'd think the Queen's suspicions might have been raised when she wondered what place she was to hold in the New Moon Order), and a little too much footage of the cast staggering around in a dust storm. As it is, it's not bad, but you could say the same about any number of its contemporaries. Music by Carlo Franci.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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