Die verlorene Legion

Roma and Alba are at war, s they have been for a while. The king of Rome,Tullio Hostillo aka Robert Keith, dreams of Roman glory, despite all the mothers crying about their dead sons. Finally, the gods speak, saying that each side must choose three brothers and the last survivor will be the winner for his side. This includes Alan Ladd, but he is thought to have abandoned his troops and died. So the woman he loves is married to his brother. When he shows up, he denies both charges, but refuses to fight. Like Achilles, he will sulk in his tent on a nearby hill top.

Well, we can be assured that eventually he will fight, and will be victorious, because he's top billed. This peplum movie merges the usual thwarted love story with the other elements, including men showing off their legs. It's decent enough, but it doesn't appear to offer much in the way of any subtext. But that's not what people look at this sort of movie for, is it?

A duel takes place in order to put an end to the long and bloody war between the Romans and the Albans. Three valiant brothers are chosen for each side. The Romans choose three brothers: the Orazi. The Albans are represented by the Curiazi.

Alan Ladd plays Horatio, a Roman general fighting in a war against the Albans. In battle, Horatio tries to lead a small party of soldiers on a guerrilla flanking maneuver. When the Romans are defeated, he is accused of having fled the battlefield. Of course, he returns to fight with his brothers against the Albans, but only after some drama.

Yes, Alan Ladd looks tired and puffy-eyed, and maybe someone else could've been chosen for the lead, but he acts quite well, his tired looks fits the world-weariness and dejectedness his character feels. After all, he accused of cowardliness, loses his love to his brother - his scenes with the character who plays his former girlfriend is well-emoted. The supporting cast is very good, especially Robert Keith ( father of Brian) as the intelligent and weary emperor.

The tone of this peplum is serious, it has a certain glumness and expresses the futility of war - but it also has some decent battle scenes such as in the beginning around the mountain and in the last twenty minutes. It's not a bad film, it has more drama than action, and the story idea is really good, it just needed a sharper screenplay and more liveliness. It lacks that punch, that's all, but its drama is decent.

While those of us interested in ancient stories and sword and sandals productions will find this story to be interesting, it falls short, well short, in production quality and script to be the epic it could have been.

The plot follows the story of one of the Orazi brothers of Rome, at war with Alba. This brother is accused of cowardice in battle and is captured by the Albans. He escapes, but is not warmly welcomed upon his return to Rome. After years of war, the Romans and Albans agree to decide the battle in a duel of 3 Roman brothers (the Orazi's) vs. 3 Alban brothers. In the end, this Orazi wins the day but the victory is bittersweet as displayed with his disgust for the need for killing.

What stands out is the epic musical score composed by Francesco Lavagnino at his peak. Clearly, the music is at a far different level than the movie, it elevates the story but cannot raise the production near to the realm of an epic. Still, it is a collectible for ancient movie fans. Available on budget DVD, the DVD transfer is terrible.

Decent Roman sword and sandal epic, a bit of an international effort with an American star, British director and an Italian production. Alan Ladd acquits himself well enough, I had doubts about seeing him in a Roman toga, he looks more convincing than John Wayne as Genghis Khan (not that, that would be difficult!)

This international co-production tells of a "famous" duel between two sets of three brothers (one from each side of the Romans and the Barbarians) which was to decide the fate of the ongoing war between them. While the production values sounded promising on paper – co-director Terence Young, American actors Alan Ladd and Robert Keith (whose last film this turned out to be), French star Jacques Sernas, ex-Fellini alumnus Franco Fabrizi, four noteworthy screenwriters, etc – the film comes off as a rather talky and undernourished affair which cannot hope to do justice to its mythical subject.

A visibly tired Alan Ladd, then, is evidently miscast and seems to be playing his role as if he has just stepped in from the American West rather than being at the head of a Roman legion! The hokey, would-be tragic "Romeo and Juliet" subplot involving Ladd's sister and Barbarian Fabrizi doesn't help matters either; on the plus side, however, is a sequence early on where Ladd is teared at by a pack of hungry wolves and the forest hunt by the three barbarian brothers for Ladd (after having killed his two siblings) which rebounds on themselves – with our hero, naturally, emerging victorious at the end to walk off into the sunset with his beloved.