El minotauro

In ancient Crete, a monster called the Minotaur can only be satisfied by virgin sacrifices. The evil ruler of Crete is determined to keep the monster happy by sacrificing as many of the island's virgins as he can, but a pair of friends determine to kill the monster and stop the sacrifices.

Director Silvio Amadio is unfortunately not well known, perhaps best remembered for "Wolves of the Deep" (1959), and even that is rather obscure. Star Bob Mathias has a much more fascinating biography -- he was a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a Marine Corps officer, actor and Republican Congressman representing the state of California.

For movie buffs, the most recognizable might be Paul Mueller, who would go on to appear in a few 60s and 70s horror films by Jess Franco, including his version of "Count Dracula".

Anyway, that was all just to full space. You should watch this.

This is a pretty good peplum film, based on the Theseus legend. It leaves out the ball of yarn gimmick that I recall from Bullfinch, alas; that made it a better story for me, showing Ariadne not only looked good in a short chiton, but had some brains.

Still, that's not what people watch swords-and-sandals flick for. The costume design is handsome, and there's some very nice photography under the supervision of Aldo Giordani, particularly the sequence with Theseus' rescue from drowning and Susanne Loret as Amphytrion. Bob Mathias plays Theseus and there's a bit with him throwing the discus. His principal claim to fame was winning Decathlon Gold at two Olympics, and he played himself in a cheap Allied Artist biopic, but his acting career was uninspiring.

This Italian peplum genre film can be missed but has enough going for it to make a screening pleasant and amusing. First, there's a LOT OF MOVIE here: many sets, big outdoor battle scenes, decadent court and temple scenes, perhaps as many dancing girl scenes as any such movie offers. Whole lotta shakin' goin' on. The music meets the moment. The wine goblets look like they'd hold a liter.

Trade-offs too in those areas. The film's visuals never provide any large sense of the labyrinth itself. When the monstrous title character finally appears, it's for only a hurried minute or two of indistinct action, cut-rate camera angles, and shifting scales for the creature's size. Also, how did a man-bull hybrid grow teeth more appropriate to a baboon?

Continuing on esoteric details, to stay family-friendly the opening narration skates over the Minotaur's origin story, i.e. Born from Minos's wife Pasiphae's lust for a particularly handsome Cretan bull. Credit to the scenario for depicting Ariadne providing a thread for escaping the labyrinth (like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs), but then the film doesn't show her and Theseus using it after he finishes off the minotaur.

Back to positives, Olympian Bob Mathias is appropriately big, buff, and handsome to stand in for Theseus (Italian Teseo), and an early generic games scene show him and Demetrios competing in decathlon events. Rosanna Schiaffino looks great as good and evil identical twin princesses and plays both stock characters well enough.

History retells mythic stories in so many variations that it's futile to complain of infidelities to the versions we learned in school. In any case, the plot tirelessly makes twists and turns to keep things moving--maybe a few too many, as some characters and their plotlines disappear for too long. Through it all Theseus looks as good as Bob Mathias on a 1950s box of Wheaties, and you could find many worse films with which to while away an afternoon or evening indoors.

In legendary times, the Cretans offered their children as sacrifices to the Minotaur. The movie starts with such a sacrifice. King Minos' wife Pasiphae is on her death bed. She reveals that Princess Fedra has a twin, Arianna who was raised as a Greek peasant. Fedra sends out her loyal guard Chirone to kill her rival. Teseo, son of King Aegeus of Athens, and his Cretan friend Demetrio happen upon the massacre and manage to rescue Arianna.

The acting is pretty bad and the dubbing does not help. Italian beauty Rosanna Schiaffino does better than most. Olympian Bob Mathias needs to go shirtless all-the-time to show off his form. He does get to do a few decathlon events. This is a cast of hundreds and the scale of production is pretty good. This spaghetti swords and sandals flick is not the worst. This should hinge on The Minotaur and The Labyrinth. Sadly, that is a bit of a disappointment.

The legend of Theseus finding his way through the Cretan maze in order to battle the Minotaur and rescue Ariadne is one of the great tales in Greek mythology. Alas, this version takes the tale and dilutes it into the standard "sword and sandal" plot. You know how it goes. The coldly-beautiful but evil queen lusts after the handsome, muscular hero. He already has a girlfriend and is a foe of tyranny and so spurns the queen. She's outraged, has the girlfriend imprisoned, and subjects the hero to a torturous trial. He triumphs, frees the girlfriend, and overthrows the tyrant. Grateful citizens cheer the happy couple. The End.

Steve Reeves might have been able to lift this mixture to a higher level but in his place we have ex-Olympics champion, Bob Mathias. Mathias is an affable sort and he's given an opportunity to show off his athletic prowess by engaging in a display of javelin throwing, pole vaulting, and discus throwing. He also looks pretty good with his shirt off, though not quite as good as you'd hope and he seems a bit self-conscious about baring his chest. On a more troubling note, however, his personality is bland, his acting ability no more than passable, and he lacks the swaggering sexuality needed to give his character that necessary edge.

Rosanna Schiaffino gets to play the evil queen as well as her virtuous twin sister. She's good at being bad but bad at being good. As for the Minotaur, traditionally represented with the head of a bull, it's poorly depicted here as a stunt-man dressed in sort of a King Kong suit, and the climatic battle between Theseus and the Minotaur doesn't deliver the expected thrills. Also, little is made of the strand of yarn which leads Theseus out of the maze, and the Minoan culture is only vaguely hinted at in the sets and costumes.

And once again, the movie bungles the torture scene. Theseus winds up in the queen's torture chamber, chained to a wall, but he's modestly allowed to keep on the top of his tunic! So when the torturer approaches with the red-hot iron, he must reach out and make a discreet rip in the hero's shirt in order to expose a bit of bare flesh next to the hero's left nipple. Hey, this is a "sword and sandal" movie featuring a muscular actor as its star. Why not rip that shirt all the way off and put the hero's sweaty torso on proper display?