Il Leone di Tebe

Menelao (Alberto Lupo) and Helen of Troy (Ivonne Furneaux) are going to Greece when they are shipwrecked on shores of Egypt . Menelao disappears and Helen stays under protection of superhero Aron (Mark Forest) . Our protagonist unhesitatingly goes into action and must use his strength to save the woman he loves from villain Tutmes (Massimo Serato) who is pharaoh's counselor (Pierre Cressoy as Ramses) . Then , he becomes inextricably involved in a war between rulers of High Egypt (capital is Tebas) and Under Egypt (center is Sais) . The Greek warrior under the command the Egyptian troops must fight against the enemies .

This is a good spaghetti , myth-opera with action , love , battles and luxurious scenarios . The movie has not mythological accuracy neither historical prospect . The picture contains stock shots from anterior films , as some flashbacks of previous movie by Giorgo Ferroni : ¨The Trojan horse¨and battle scenes . Mark Forest , in his last film , is perfect as the mythical hero who encounters many dangerous situations while trying save his true love -the queen Helen- of numerous odds . Forest who played the mythic Maciste in great number of movies was randomly assigned the identity of Hércules , Goliath , Samson or here Aron for U.S. viewing . Robust and strong Forest was a muscle-man who left allegedly the sword and sandals genre for the Opera , he used the amount of money he made acting as hero and gladiators 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 muscle mythological figures , but nobody topped Steve Reeves in popularity . Above average muscle-men fodder and better than most muscles operas-spaghetti , thanks to Mark Forest and by Peplum specialist like is fine director Giorgo Ferroni .

One of the approximately 300 Italian peplum (sword and sandals) films made between 1957 and 1965, Lion of Thebes is unusual for a number of reasons: one, there is actually something like a coherent story rather than a simple collection of "strongman set pieces"; two, there is actually a fair amount of dialogue, and the acting is rather better than usual--one almost has the impression that the muscleman (Aryan) cares about what is happening; three, the film is a little more ethically ambiguous than usual: the good woman (Helen) and the "bad" woman (Naïs) actually want the same thing; the "usurper" is actually the proper heir to the throne; the wicked counselor is evil, but actually wants to save Thebes from its weak and careless leader. Peplums tend to range from laughably bad to simply agonizingly bad--this one's actually okay.

Il leone di tebe(1964) Regia di Giorgio Ferroni Con Mark Forest, Yvonne Furneaux, Massimo Serato, Rosalba Neri, Pierre Cressoy, Enzo Fiermonte, Alberto Lupo

That the set are well done but a bit in the studio, the costumes and hairstyles are good.The story at the beginning is a bit' slow and boring, but then it becomes interesting.Yvonne Furneax is beautiful and she had breathtaking close-ups, has a wonderful body. No chemistry with Mark Forest and their love story is boring. The music is recycled and not very incisive.Rosalba Neri is beautiful and manages to be more provocative, sensual and charismatic of Furneax.Mark Forest better than usual but in the fight scenes you can see his double . Very good Alberto Lupo, Massimo Serato and Pierre Cressoy as the villains.There are some interesting twists. A good peplum film even if there are moments of bore.

From the first scenes, you discover the predictable story proposed by the long chain of movies of genre. Virtues - the body of Mark Forest and the special beauty of Yvonne Furneaux , the ingrate Menelaus and, sure, the machine of death.

The result is charming for reasonable mix of Iliad and Old Egypt, silly mix of names = Amenofis, Tutmes, Ramses - and the lovely - conventional love story, after fights dosis.

Short - just nice.

In a beauty contest with contemporary Helen Diane Kruger in Petersen's extravaganza ,Yvonne Furneaux would certainly win hands down,weren't it only for her sublime eyes.

A "cultural" prologue tells us that the film was based on "documents" which would tend to substantiate a thesis that,for Helen,there was a life after Troy.And that she and Menelas were not exactly the best of friends when the war came to an end .I doubt,however,that a junior high school student would get an A plus if he wrote his essay about Helen's fate after watching this flick.

The star is actually Mark Forest a muscle man ,who left reportedly sword and sandals for the opera ,but his acting is so wooden that Yvonne Furneaux's beauty (a French Helen,why not?) is the main attraction.

The story? Helen and her attentive escort Arion arrive in Egypt where they are taken in by the pharaoh.Of course Helen's beauty is bound to cause more disasters but there are plenty of villains around including her hubby himself.Poor Helen is accused of pharaoh's murder and sentenced to a horrible death ( crushed between two stones).There are lots of treasons,murders,even a trial ,in a cheap Thebes.

Girogio Ferroni had directed another movie about Troy with Steve Reeves but he did not use the same actress for Helen:Yvonne Furneaux is an improvement on the former actress,this is the only nice thing I can say about "Leone di Tebe"