La guerra de Troya

Although we got to see very little of Steve Reeves's impressive physique in The Trojan Horse, we also didn't hear that impressively dubbed bass in the two Hercules movies.

The twist here is an interesting one. Reeves plays Aeneas a Trojan warrior who seems to have more in common with the Greek invaders. He regard Paris played here by Warner Bentivegna as a real punk which he certainly acts like. The irony of hundreds of people being killed on both sides including a lot of good men is not lost on him.

In that computer graphic driven spectacle Troy the roles of Paris and Helen were played by Orlando Bloom and Diane Kruger and they were just two crazy kids in love her trying to escape an enforced marriage. Here Helen is played by Edy Vessel and she's quite the scheming vixen.

As Peplum pictures go in that era when two or three seemed to be coming out every week the classic tale gets a different and unique version. Ulysses is played by John Drew Barrymore the only other American in the cast.

There is a sequel about the further adventures of Aeneas which I'm also interested in. This is all based on Aeneid which is the Trojan version of the events of the fall of Troy and the aftermath by Virgil.

As the movie begins, a small group of Trojans (or is it the Greeks) on horseback stand facing towards their beloved Troy (or maybe its Athens). As the epic story is introduced in a voiceover, I watched curiously as one of the horses raised his tail in an arc and then casually "took a dump" one might say. A comment on the upcoming tale or performance? Actually, the horse was rather too severe in his prejudgements. As "sword and sandal" epics go, this one was not too bad. Steve Reeves looked chiseled and handsome, most of the sets and costumes were convincing, and there were some beautiful horses and chariots, although way too many battle scenes, shot long range so it was mostly a blur and a lot of shouting in Italian or something. Not a bad way to brush up on your Homeric history though, with the whole cast of characters from Helen to Casandra, Ulysees to Archilles (who got killed by an arrow shot in the "you know where").

The film starts with Achiles(Arturo Dominici)dragging body of Hector, Priam's son. Later Aeneas (Steve Reeves) and Priam, king of Troy, go to the enemy camp asking his body. There, Aeneas will have to combat hunk men (Mimmo Palmara, Nello Pazzafini). Later on, at Troy takes place the famous episodes of the prophecy of Cassandra (Lidia Alfonsi) and the ¨Trojan Horse¨ . The movie deals about war of Troy as adaptation from classic poem of Homero. Helena( Hedy Vessel)wife of Menelao of Sparta( Nando Tamberlani),escapes with Paris( Warner). The Greek Army and ships go to Troya with Achiles(Arturo Domicini), the king of Micenas Agamenon(Nerio Bernardi) and the Spartans. They fight against the king of Troya (Carlo Tamberlani) and his son Paris and of course Aeneas.

This is an overwhelming and breathtaking film with impressive battles, as thousands of extras take part and mostly are staged on Yugoslavia.The picture packs colorful cinematography and evocative musical score by Giovanni Fusco. The flick is finely directed by Giorgo Ferroni , an expert on Peplum. It's followed by ¨La Leggenda di Enea¨ or ¨The avenger¨ directed by Giorgo Rivalta and Albert Band and again with Steve Reeves as Aeneas.

The picture is well starred by Steve Reeves who made lots of roman-epic-Italian films also called ¨Musclemen movies¨ or ¨Sword and sandals¨. Luck's Reeves changed when Italian director Pietro Francisci persuaded him to go overseas to star ¨Hercules¨ and sequel ¨Hercules and queen of Lydia¨ also titled ¨Hercules unchained ¨, and later on, he followed with ¨Goliath and the Barbarians¨, ¨The giant of Marathon¨, ¨The son of Spartacus¨ ,¨The Avenger¨ and several others . Steve was an American bouncing who emigrated towards Italy and created a true star-system based on pumped-up heroes. He paved the way for others actors to seek their fame and fortune in Italy playing stocky adventurers . Other stars by the time on this type of movies are Mark Forest, Gordon Mitchell, Dan Vadis, Brad Harris, Ken Wood who is usually Reeves's double and appears in very secondary role at ¨War of Troy¨ ; furthermore 'Gordon Scott' who made him more important competence. Nobody, nevertheless, topped Steve in popularity.

The story is partially based on ¨Iliad¨ that is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer and the screenwriters, Hugo Liberatore and Giorgo Stegani take parts here and there. Set in the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of Ilium by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege.Along with the Odyssey, also attributed to Homer, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the eighth century BC. The Iliad contains approximately 15,700 lines, and is written in a literary amalgam of several Greek dialects. The authorship of the poem is disputed .

If I remember well it was last year (1997) when I first saw this movie on the private Italian channel Rete 4 one Sunday afternoon. It was broadcasted in the series "Kolossal All'Italiana". At the same time, the Italian state TV RAI3 was showing "Helen of Troy" in the series "Colossi di Casa", both series implying that the movies were epics filmed in Italy. Before viewing this film I thought it was some sort of low-budget re-make of "Helen of Troy", but on watching it I was surprised to find out otherwise. Even though the storyline is basically similar in both films, this one offers a different kind of entertainment. While "Helen of Troy focuses more on the love affair between Helen and Paris, this movie is more concerned on the psychological situations of the principal characters, namely Aeneas. The final scene of "La Guerra di Troia", showing Aeneas escaping carrying his son in his arms after the death of Creusa is much more touching than the finale of the other movie showing Helen looking longingly at Troy where Paris had been killed. Even though I liked more "Helen of Troy" because of its better cinematography, better colour and better acting, still I have to admit that this one is of a higher level than many other Italian sword and sandal films of that era.

Although produced on a higher scale (and budget) than most of these "epics", "The Trojan Horse" soon becomes a tedious blur of battles in which it is even tough to tell who is who. If you're looking for quality Steve Reeves content, he has one great, albeit way too brief, fight scene early on versus the mighty warrior (and not the Dutch soccer team) Ajax, but you can 100% safely skip the rest of the movie, where he is barely visible. ** out of 4.