1965, Italy. Starring Luciana Gilli, Piero Lulli, Kirk Morris, Andrea Scotti. Directed by Alfonso Brescia. Available on DVD (Amazon).

Oh man, this one is really going to make your head hurt in the most glorious way. By this point, we've pretty much established that if you are looking for historical accuracy, or even mythological accuracy, the Italian peplum films of the 1960s are not the place to turn, though they are certainly better than relying on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. But up until now, minus a few minor details like having Greek legends battling prehistoric cavemen or helping 13th century Christians combat the Mongol hordes, the offenses have been relatively minor, and are certainly no different than an ancient Greek playwright inventing his own Hercules stories for the stage. At no point did anyone have Hercules fighting space aliens. Oh wait, they did that in 1983 with Lou Ferigno. Well, then at least they never had anything where Hercules scares little old ladies as he flies by their airplane window en route to modern-day New York. Oh wait, that happened too, didn't it?

Well, if you are thinking to yourself, "Sure all that may be true, but Hercules never fired a laser beam at an army of bronze robots commanded by an evil Ming the Merciless wizard from Atlantis," well brothers and sisters, you are wrong.

Conquerors of Atlantis takes the Hercules myth to its most illogical extremes and clocks in as the most absurd, yet also one of the most entertaining entries into the sword and sandal genre. The film sees a returning Kirk Morris, star of Colossus and the Headhunters, still looking a little too GQ for my tastes, but I'm beginning to soften to the guy. I found him terribly bland in Headhunters, but he's better this time around, probably because he's surrounded by such an outlandish scenario. The director, Alfonso Brescia, would later go on to make a string of science fiction movies in the 1970s, and his predisposition toward that genre is already evident here in what was one of his only sword and sandal films. Rather than rely on the age-old blend of muscles and fantasy, Brescia opts to make use of his position as a resident of the latter half of the 20th century, invoking elements of sci-fi that look like something straight out of an old Flash Gordon serial adventure, complete with subpar special effects.

This time around, Morris is referred to as Hercules, or Heracles rather, but it's all the same beefy guy. As usual, it's doubtful the character was meant to be Hercules in the original version, but since he seems to be the only Greek hero anyone can remember, there you go. The ancient Romans really dug Hercules anyway, even moreso than the Greeks who invented the guy. In Greek stories, Herc is generally a moron who blunders his way through a series of adventures and tragedies caused by his own stupidity and bull-headedness. For the more satirical Greek writers, Hercules became a frequently used comic character, and they reveled in using his idiocy as an example of the foibles of relying solely on might to make right.

When they moved in and took over all the ancient Greek ideas, the Romans were much kinder to ol' Herc, transforming him into a far more respectable and capable hero with a strong sense of justice. He was admired for his strength, and it was used as a tool for victory rather than the source of his folly. Obviously the Hercules of the movies is much closer to the Roman version than the original Greek version, but hell, it was Romans making the movies, so what do you want?

The movie begins with what seems to be a never-ending caravan of horses and camels walking across the desert as the credits roll. Just when you think you've seen the last camel, a couple more will trot by. It's sort of like waiting for a Bruce Springsteen song to end. Just when you think things are winding down and you start to applaud, suddenly he's swinging his arms again and has a whole new verse to get through. Listen to "Dancing in the Dark" if you need an example. I think Adam Sandler even spoofed this in a skit somewhere. Not that I'm all that familiar with the work of Adam Sandler. I did see Shakes the Clown though.

The caravan, which is of course led by a stunningly beautiful princess, discovers Hercules passed out on the beach. A night of Bacchanalian revelry that leaves you waking up on the beach going, "Am I wearing a little leather loincloth?" Lord knows I've had nights like that. Or perhaps we're actually seeing some sort of continuity between Hercules films. After all, if Kirk's last film, Colossus and the Headhunters, we see him setting sail on a little raft to parts unknown. Could it be this opening is actually related to the end of the last film? Well, I fell for that old trick once, coincidentally at the beginning of Colossus and the Headhunters, which seems at first to be directly related to the end of Fire Monster Against the Son of Hercules. A mere fool was I, and like Roger Daltry, I wasn't going to get fooled again.

Sure enough, as soon as Hercules wakes up, he explains that he was leading a ship either to or from the Peloponesian War, and the thing sank. So yet again, Hercules has the good fortune to stumble upon a remote corner of the world where he just happens to meet a gorgeous princess. What is it with this guy? The princess he meets is the daughter of the leader of one of the two big-time groups battling for control of the region, which is mostly arid, sandy desert. She talks about what a cool guy her dad is, which means he has a pretty good chance of being exposed as right evil, and how a band of brigands are giving him a hard time, which means the brigands will probably turn out to be pretty noble after all.

Hercules and the princess part company, but not before he notices she has dropped an earring. Is it a golden earring? Looks like it, and Herc's radar love targets her immediately. Unfortunately, she and her band have disappeared far into the desert. Given that they only left about thirty seconds earlier, I have to assume they are simply squatting behind a dune waiting for Hercules to go away.

He trots off after her and quickly stumbles upon a skirmish between a caravan and some raiders. Using his keen powers of perception, Hercules instantly figures out who is good and who is evil and joins the fray. Hooray! His side wins. The leader, who he discovers is the leader of the aforementioned bandits, greets him in a hearty, manly way. They have a test of strength which literally brings the tent down, and the two of them laugh heartily and roll around with each other in the sand. Sword and sandal movies never did shy away from homoerotic imagery. Hell, how can you when your entire film focuses on a beefy, oiled-up man in a loin cloth wrestling with other men in loin cloths? I mean, through a gay cop mustache and a leather cap on these guys, and you have a Tom of Finland story.

When the bandit king explains that his people are not bandits, and it is the princess's people who are doing all the raiding and oppressing, Hercules decides to get to the bottom of things, or least get to the bottom of the princess. You know, he may be all homoerotic and he may like to wrestle with other men on a plush carpet, but at the end of the day, 'tis the firm buttocks and ample bosom of a curvaceous female that doth light aflame the loins of Hercules. And if she's dressed like a belly dancer, so much the better for all of us. Hercules trades in his loin cloth for a Lawrence of Arabia outfit and bounds across the desert to settle this whole mess. Along the way he stops at the Oasis of Exposition, where a couple grizzled old Arabs tell him a story about strange desert phantoms attacking people, then disappearing into the sands. Even a blockhead like Hercules starts to put two and two together and come up with three, as in there are actually three groups operating in the desert, with the third one being a phantom group no one knows about and is manipulating the attacks to frame the other groups in each other's eyes.

Hmm, a sword and sandal version of the James Bond film? Ahh! But Conquerors of Atlantis came years before You Only Live Twice in which an evil phantom organization with an underground lair attacked both the Russians and the Americans and tried to make it look like Americans were attacking Russians and vice versa. So obviously, the entire Bond franchise was stolen from sword and sandal films. Actually, I think that whole manipulating the superpowers plot has been used about a billion times, but they always fall for it. Suckers.

Sure enough, Hercules shows up at the princess's tent at about the same time weird "weee-ooo-weee" electronic sounds of the future make everyone wonder who's listening to the Forbidden Planet soundtrack. This is, of course, the futuristic sounds of the desert phantoms, who use them for no real reason other than to fuck with everyone. I mean, it's not a death ray. It doesn't really initiate anything, nor is it followed by the echoing "Surface dwellers! We shall crush you!" speech that you'd be expecting. No, they pretty much just have this machine that makes woo-weee-wooo tones, and they use it to mildly annoy their enemies. It sort of like if you attacked your enemy with a copy of Raymond Scott's "Soothing Sounds for Baby, Volume One."

Well, as the fates would have it (and it is "the fates" instead of the singular "fate," as there were a lot more fates back then), the noble leader of the other tribe shows up, everyone sorts out the whole business about the desert phantoms, and they all become friends. This precious moment is interrupted when the princess is kidnapped by the desert phantoms, something that actually once ruined a fairly touching moment in my own life. That's what I like most about Hercules; I can relate to him.

Hercules and his manly pal decide to launch an expedition into the desert's "Forbidden Zone," where they hope to either discover the true nature of the planet of the apes, or simply go kick some desert phantom tail. I'll let you figure out which one. Fans of the genre may be worried about the inability of Hercules to perform his most famous feats of strength, which include boulder hurling and the pushing over of columns. After all, boulders and columns are both hard to come by in the open desert. Luckily, they soon stumble across some ruins, which will give Herc ample opportunity to ply his shtick.

After stumbling around the ruins for a spell, Herc and the Arabic guy fall into a trap door and are immediately held at spearpoint by a squad of beautiful subterranean ladies with blue hair. They also meet a crazy evil wizard who looks like a cross between Ming the Merciless and the dotering old wizard portrayed by Ralph Richardson in Dragonslayer. It's at this point the fashion really kicks into high gear. Gold lame, shiny blue spandex, glittery silver, massive, ornate headdresses, and more mind-altering sparkle, glitter, and sequins than even Sigfried and Roy could handle. Kinda makes you wonder how these guys went unnoticed for so long. I mean, it's like an army of Rip Taylors coming at you. Effective, maybe, but certainly not discreet or subtle.

Herc and his toned but not so toned as to make Herc look smaller pal are led around the underground kingdom revealed to be Atlantis. They are as surprised as I am given that Atlantis supposedly sunk into the ocean hundreds of thousands of years ago. How the hell did it wind up in the middle of the Sahara Desert? Must be some of that continental drift we hear so much about. Almost as surprising as finding Atlantis in the desert is the discovery that the Arab princess has been brainwashed and will become the next queen of Atlantis. Hercules is, of course, heart-broken.

Our two heroes are placed in a prison cell and watched over by a video camera. In one of the most ridiculous bits in the whole film, Hercules devises an ingenious plan to obscure the eye so he and his friend can search for weaknesses in the cell. The plan consists primarily on the Arabic guy standing in front of the camera and talking loudly while Hercules frantically searched for any possible means of escape. Strategies like this might explain why Hercules sunk his ship and ended up here in the first place. I bet when he shoplifts he wears a big overcoat and walks around looking at the ceiling and whistling.

The Mad Wizard then takes our heroes on a sight-seeing tour of his underground kingdom, including showing how they turn dead warriors into scrawny bronze robots with gingerly prances and shiny blue body stockings. Now here's a reaaaalllly long stretch. The bronze men are, for those in the know, a pretty common element in a lot of Hong Kong kungfu films, usually as Shaolin bronzemen who are sort of the last test before a student can become a real bad-ass. Curiously enough, director Alfonso Brescia would direct one of the several rather awful Italian/Hong Kong kungfu co-productions of the 1970s, Supermen Against the Amazons, a kungfu/superhero/spy comedy sequel to 1974's Supermen Against the Orient, which starred kungfu big-wig Lo Lieh. So what we have here are Italians really exploring the proto Shaolin bronzemen.

Sorta. The only difference is that these bronzemen are not undead Shaolin monks, nor are they very good at fighting though several were obviously dancers or professional acrobats at some point. As far as henchmen go, they're pretty fruity looking, but I guess no one can look tough painted gold and wearing a metallic blue spandex body stocking.

The Mad Wizard also shows Hercules his special brain controlling machine, which allows him to control all the bronzemen and the princess. he then goes on to explain how, if the machine was ever destroyed or its rays reversed, all the soldiers, princess, and all the slaves would regain their free will and revolt, so please don't go fiddling with the controls. Yet another graduate of the Bond Villain School of Evil.

The brawn of Hercules and his pal overcome a couple slave girls, who slip everyone a mickey so they can have a night of pleasure with the surface dwellers, promptly proclaiming their eternal love for two men they met mere seconds before. This is another pretty standard thing in a sword and sandal film. Women fall hopelessly in love with the hero in a matter of seconds, even if all he's done is walk across the room. To be fair, the hero is usually a pretty big sap himself, but this is something even more extreme than love at first sight. It's like primitive love.

Unfortunately, the girls seem as good at planning as Hercules himself. After pulling their little stunt, they simply take the heroes back to the regular quarters, and are caught about five minutes later. For loving a man, the Queen of Atlantis kills the two women with the laser or whatever it is. Seems a bit drastic, but then the evil queen in these movies is always pretty casual about murdering her minions. Hercules doesn't care for her attitude and stages an escape during which he manages to unbrainwash (braindirty?) the princess, steal the laser, shoot the queen dead with it, and lead his trio back to the surface for a big fight with the bronze robot men. All in all, this is a pretty damn good fight, with lots of acrobatics, flipping around, and lackey tossing. It's among the more exciting, better choreographed hand-to-hand fight scenes in any of the peplum films.

The Arab guy and the princess escape, and just as Hercules is about to plod after them, out come the sexy female archers. Hercules grabs one of the the robot men as a shield, which is good since the guy is like half the size of Hercules and leaves plenty of wide-open target for the women, who promptly shoot Hercules in the shoulder. In a way, this buffoonery is pretty on target with a lot of the characterization of Hercules in ancient Greek plays. No one ever said he was the brightest bulb in the sign.

Luckily, the women don't seem much brighter than Hercules. They leave him lying there with the idea that they will "pick him up later." Why? I mean, what else do they have to do? Sure enough, Hercules wakes up, grimaces and clutches his shoulder, and then in the next scene, presto! The wound is gone, and Hercules is as strong and healthy as ever. He invades the inner sanctum of the mad wizard guy while the Arabs mount a full frontal assault and battle the bronzemen, who are suddenly a lot harder to beat than they were in the last fight. So Hercules, the strongest man in the world goes after the frail old scientist while the weaker mortals have to fight the well nigh invulnerable army of robotic bronze men. Maybe Herc isn't so dumb after all.

Of course we all know that the righteous will prevail and the evil will be vanquished. You don't go to these movies hoping to see everyone fail. All in all, it's a pretty wild ride with lots of great fights, a fast pace, and a completely insane plot. The set designs and costumes are colorful and outlandish, Kirk Morris does a decent job, and you get lots of heroic Arabs for once instead of treacherous ones. Conquest of Atlantis is definitely the weirdest and most far-out of all the old sword and sandal films, but it's also one of the most energetic and fun. You may not believe what you're seeing, which is all the more reason to make sure you see it.

Labels: Fantasy: Peplum, Stars: Kirk Morris, Year: 1965