Maciste

Mark Forest (bodybuilder Lou Degni) provides the beef in this relatively lavish Egyptian-style muscleman movie, whose production design is quite good for a low-budget, Italian potboiler. But for those who enjoy the genre, the highlight is the voluptuous Chelo Alonso, whose elegantly stiff performance as the evil empress is supplanted by the delightful belly dance she performs to seduce our lifeless hero midway through the picture. Adolescent kitsch working extraordinarily well as a fetishistic flesh fantasy. Terrific.

Mythological epic with a magnificent he-man as is Mark Forest and set in Under Egypt whose center is ¨Sais¨ while High Egypt the capitol is ¨Tanis¨ . The setting is the 11th century BC ancient Egypt , when the country is dominated by Persian occupiers who have enslaved the people . At the beginning appears some impressive images with slaves buried until neck and serpents surrounding and other frames with persons burn on poles . Pharaoh Armiteo I (Carlo Tamberlani) is planning a rebellion against Persians . But his gorgeous wife Smedes (Chelo Alonso) aware and kill him . The young prince Kenamus (Zanolli) becomes the new successor , but he is deceived and spelled by means of a potion who turns into slave to Smedes . The bouncing Maciste helps the youngster Kenamun and reunites an army of rebels to take on the Smedes troops . Our protagonist unhesitatingly goes into action and must use his strength to save the successor from villain Smedes and against the pharaoh's former counselor . Then Maciste becomes inextricably involved in a war between usurpers under the command the Egyptian troops against an army of helpless rebels . Along the way Maciste or Hercules or Goliath frees slaves , moves rocks and fights a lion and Crocs .

French/Italian co-production with haunting scenarios , wonderful outdoors and rousing production design . This is a good spaghetti , myth-opera with action , love , battles and luxurious landscapes . The movie has not mythological accuracy neither expecting historical . Breathtaking scenes when is elevated an Egyptian column and overwhelming final battle with surprisingly gory scenes . As usual ,the beautiful Cuban dancer/actress plays an erotic dancing with veil included before Maciste that was censored in Spain . In the picture turns up Peplum ordinaries as Vira Silenti , the veteran Carlo Tamberlani and Andrea Fantasia who along with his brother Franco Fantasia worked much as maestros of weapons in this genre . Interesting screenplay by Ennio De Concini , a prolific writer who wrote a lot of Spaghetti , Gialli and Peplum . This spectacular Sword and Sandal movie displays a colorful and glimmer cinematography by Riccardo Pallotini , filmed on location in Egypt including the pyramids and temples of Hatsetsup , Karnak , Luxor , among others . Atmospheric and evocative musical score by Carlo Innocenzi . The motion picture is well directed by Carlo Campogalliani who made many tales of this kind . He along with Vittorio Cottafavi and Giorgio Ferroni continued to realize films in the historical-spectacular style , at which he developed a considerable skill and mastery .

Mark Forest , in his first film, is perfect as the mythical hero who encounters many dangerous situations while trying to save a pharaoh of numerous odds . Forest who played the mythic Maciste in great number of movies was randomly assigned the identity of Hercules , Goliath , Samson or Aron for U.S. viewing . Bouncing and strong Forest was the second American actor bodybuilder , after Steve Reeves , to be recruited by Italian producers to star in Peplum films . The muscle-man Forest left allegedly the sword and sandals genre for the Opera . He used the amount of money he made acting as hero and gladiator films in Italy to study Opera , he currently teaches in the Los Angeles zone . He was one along with Ed Fury , Dan Vadis,Brad Harris , Alan Steel , Reg Park , Gordon Scott whom to seek fortune acting absurdly as muscle mythological figures but nobody topped Steve Reeves in popularity . He only starred Peplum such as : 1964 Hércules against sons of sun , 1964 Lion of Tebas , 1964 Maciste Nell'inferno Gengis Khan , 1964 Maciste, Gladiatore Sparta , 1963 Maciste Contro i Mongoli ,1963 Maciste, l'Eroe più Grande del Mondo ,1962 Maciste, Gladiatore più forte Mondo , 1961 Maciste, the Son of Hercules , 1960 La Venganza De Ercole . Rating : Above average muscle-men fodder and better than most muscles operas-spaghetti,thanks to Mark Forest and by Peplum specialist as is the director Carlo Campogalliani .

Evil Queen Smedes (Chelo Alonso) controls Persian-occupied Egypt while keeping her stepson-rightful ruler Kenamun (Angelo Zanolli)-under the influence of a mind-numbing medallion. Now, it's up to the mighty Maciste (Mark Forest) to lead a daring revolt in order to overthrow Smedes and restore Kenamun to the throne

Son of Samson is quite an atmospheric peplum with the desolate scenery adding to the feeling of helplessness and oppression the Egyptians feel. You actually feel like you're there - the scenery is quite vivid. Surprisingly, it's a bit bloody and brutal, for its time anyway. It has a good story, however, and the narrative unravels leisurely. Maybe it's a little laborious in pace. But it's intriguing and involving enough.

Mark Forest stars as Samson (or Maciste), a strongman figure with a keen sense of justice, a vast contrast to Chelo Alonso, who plays the evil Queen and steals the scene with her wicked ways. Does she get her just dessert? You'll have to watch to find out!

Maciste was very useful for the Peplum genre since the Italian folk hero wasn't rooted in any particular mythological tradition. He could turn up anywhere, "born of the rock," as Maciste (Italian American bodybuilder Mark Forest, who also played Hercules this same year) explains in the first Maciste entry of the Peplum revival that began in the late 1950s. Here, he turns up in ancient Egypt, which is being overrun with Persian marauders aided by the evil Queen Smedes (Chelo Alonso), who in the first few minutes has her uncooperative Pharoah husband assassinated. A chance encounter has Maciste befriending the Pharoah's hapless son, who is eventually bewitched by the beguiling Alonso, but at least Maciste knows that the guy is basically okay.

There is the usual amount of double-crossing and mistaken ideas about various characters motivations, and most of the requite Peplum tropes, including the hero defeating lions and alligators and soldiers. Maciste gets several opportunities to perform feats of strength and Forest acquits himself well through all of it, flexing and looking strong. But this isn't one of the more engaging or entertaining entries in the genre, which was kicking into high gear. It's not as interesting as Forest's other 1960 Peplum, "Goliath and the Dragon" a.k.a. "The Revenge of Hercules." It largely wastes Alonso, who normally can be a dynamic presence in these films. She gets one decent dance number and has moderate fun trying to seduce Maciste, and of course she looks great and has good costumes. But the film could have done more with her, and suffers for not doing so.

The English-language version was retitled "Son of Samson," with some dialogue added about Maciste maybe being a son of Samson. It's unnecessary, doesn't make much sense, and doesn't really matter. Maciste was largely unfamiliar to non-Italian audiences, so most of the Maciste films were retitled with other heroes and often the character was called someone else. Here, at least, he gets to keep the name if not the title.

Maciste is in Egypt where an evil queen is out to seduce him into her villainous ways, to get what she wants.

The name Samson appears in the title but this has no relationship to the biblical Samson. The film was distributed to English-speaking countries as Son of Samson but in all of the original films Maciste has no relationship to anyone named Samson. Italian titles translate into English as "Maciste in the Valley of the Kings" and it's aka "Maciste the Mighty" It's a film that barely kept me interested in it at times, other times was looking up more information on the internet about the film which was more interesting than the film itself.

2/10