Goliat contra los bárbaros

Hercules was good, Hercules Unchained better still, and Morgan the Pirate was nothing to scoff at. Still, this remains the best Steve Reeves mini-epic of all, if also the hardest to get ahold of on VHS and DVD. He's typecast as a gentle giant who becomes a masked avenger when a horde of barbarians invades his terrain, leading the good people on a guerilla campaign against the marauding mob. Until, that is, he gets a good look at the barbarian princess (Chelo Alonso) and falls apart at the seams. Don't blame him - you will too. This former dancer at Paris nightspots is an exotic beauty, dark and dangerous looking, and she has not one but two extremely erotic dance numbers. They may seem relatively mild today, but this was real hot stuff for those of us who were adolescent boys when the movie was first released in America. The fight scenes are well staged, considering the tight budget, and this rates as the kind of exciting fun that used to make up the top half of a double bill at Saturday matinees during the late fifties and early sixties.

This Muscle man movie contains adventures , thrills , a love story and hokey historic events . Being a so-so Italian production financed/written by Emimmo Salvi and professionally directed by Carlo Campogalliani . Colorful sword-and-sandal odyssey , well-plotted, with an appealing performance from Steve Reeves , dealing with the time of King Alboino and his Longobards in which Barbarian armies sweep the Ancient Roman empire . When Barbarians invade his village and kill his father , a local man wages an one-man war against them . Then , there appears a corpulent mysterious masked man . He will kill 10,000 Barbarians . And all of them will call him GOLIATH! . As Goliath and his men go after the Barbarians who are ravaging and terrorizing the Northern Italian countryside , attacking Verona and Milan , during the Fall of the Roman Empire . Goliath must fight Barbarians to save enemy princess (lovely Chelo Alonso) and he conquers all . The picture is partially based on historical events , here shows up the powerful Alboino (American secondary Bruce Cabot) . After gathering a large coalition of peoples, Alboin crossed the Julian Alps in 568, entering an almost undefended Italy. He rapidly took control of most of Venetia and Liguria. In 569, unopposed, he took northern Italy's main city, Milan. Pavia offered stiff resistance however, and was only taken after a siege lasting three years. During that time Alboin turned his attention to Tuscany, but signs of factionalism among his supporters and Alboin's diminishing control over his army increasingly began to manifest themselves. Alboin was assassinated on June 28, 572, in a coup d'état instigated by the Byzantines. It was organized by the king's foster brother, Helmichis, with the support of Alboin's wife, Rosamund, daughter of the Gepid king whom Alboin had killed some years earlier .

This is an entertaining Peplum movie , full of action , thrills , double-crosses and of course , a lot of battles and fights . Another sword and sandal flick , this is acceptable . The production values are better than average, and the acting and direction at least try , including noisy action , spectacular combats , court intrigue , and usual dances performed by the gorgeous dancer Chelo Alonso . Screen-written by Emimmo Salvi who wrote and produced lots of Peplum , Giallo and Spaghetti Western . Lots of intrigue , treason , evocative scenarios , twists , thrills and ordinary spectacle as bouncing man carried out by the great Steve Reeves . Well sculped Steve plays yet another mesophorn to the rescue in this poorly dubbed Spaghetti legend . Sympathetic performances by main star cast such as Steve Reeves in one his main films of his fruitful career , beauty Chelo Alonso and agreeable secondary cast ; as the marvelous main actors are completed by a stellar cast full of veteran Italian players as Arturo Dominici , Gino Scotti , Livio Lorenzon , Andrea Checchi , Carla Calò and special appearance by Bruce Cabot , John Ford's regular secondary .

The picture is well starred by the hunk man Steve Reeves as the notorious war-time hero against Lombards captained by Igor : Livio Lorenzon and Delfo : Andrea Checchi , all of them governed by King Alboino : Bruce Cabot . In 1957, Reeves went to Italy and played the lead character in Pietro Francisci's Hercules, a very low-budget epic based loosely on the tales of Jason and the Argonauts, though inserting Hercules into the lead role . Steve performed the mythic Maciste in a number of movies was randomly assigned the identity of Goliath , Hercules or Samson for US viewing . From 1959 through 1964, Reeves went on to appear in a string of sword and sandal movies shot on relatively small budgets , and although he is best known for his portrayal of the Greek hero Hercules, he played the character only twice: in the 1957 film and its 1959 sequel Hercules Unchained (released in the US in 1960) . He played a number of other characters on screen, including Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Glaucus of Pompeii ; Goliath ; Tatar hero Hadji Murad; Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome (opposite Gordon Scott as his twin brother Remus); pirate and self-proclaimed governor of Jamaica, Captain Henry Morgan; and Karim, the Thief of Baghdad . Twice he played Aeneas of Troy and twice he played Emilio Salgari's Malaysian hero, Sandokan . Steve Reeves played the Umberto Lenzi Sandokan saga ; the first was "Sandokan, La Tigre di Mompracen¨ or "Sandokan the Great" (1963) and second was ¨Pirati Della Malesia (1964) .

This film is colorfully photographed by Bitto Albertini who bit later on launched his career as a professional filmmaker . Atmospheric and evocative musical score by Carlo Innocenci and compellingly conducted by Franco Ferrara . The picture was decently directed by Carlo Campogalliani (1885–1974) , a veteran and good craftsman director . He worked in silent cinema , shooting early Peplum as Il Testamento Di Maciste 1920 , Il Viaggio Di Maciste 1920 , Maciste Contro la Morte 1920 , Il Teschio D'Oro 1920 , La trilogy Di Maciste 1919 and Maciste I . In the sixties Carlo directed four Sword and Sandals movies : Ursus 1961 , Maciste Nella Valle Dei Re 1960 , this Goliath and the Barbarians 1959 and Rosmunda e Alboino 1961 , the latter dealing with Alboino (Jack Palance) , the Lombard ruler, wants to marry the daughter of a neighboring king, but she loves another . This barbarous war lord has his eyes set on princess Rosmunda (Eleonora Rossi Drago) and her father agrees to a marriage of convenience , subsequently to take place Alboino's killing .

I was 11yrs. old when I saw this movie for the first time. I was immediately "hooked" on Steve Reeves. This is still the only movie 45 years later that I get excited talking about. Reeves had an on-screen presence that was mesmerizing. The scene in which he is strapped to two horses that are pulling in opposite directions designed to split him apart is breath taking. And this is one of many scenes that exploits the magnificence of Steve's fantastic physique. Along with Reeves is the beautiful actress, Chelo Alonso who plays Reeves' love interest. They are truly electrifying on screen.(If you can call anything filmed in 1959 "electric"). I've seen about every movie that Steve Reeves made...from HERCULES to LONG RIDE FROM HELL. Even though HERCULES is the movie Steve will most be remembered for, GOLIATH & THE BARBARIANS will always be a top 10 favorite of mine!!!

You have to wonder how smart or stupid the Hollywood movie studios in the late 1950 were....first of all they all passed on a cheaply made Italian muscleman movie named "Hercules" with Steve Reeves and then passed again on "Hercules Unchained" with Reeves again in the title role....independent producer Joseph E. Levine picked up the options on both of these films and waged a massive advertising campaign in newspapers and television and those two "Hercules" films became monster hits at the box office. Not to learn from their previous mistakes, Reeves then made a muscleman "epic" called "Goliath and the Barbarians".....independent American International picked up the option on the film and it made a monster amount of money for them. Go figure out Hollywood....In "Goliath and the Barbarians" Reeves is the leader of a band of Italian villagers hell bent on revenge against a massive horde of barbarian huns led by a maniac named Igor. After a massacre of his village including the murder of his father Reeves decides enough is enough. He secretly starts to wipe out the barbarian horde one by one until his methods are found out by Igor. Along the way the beautiful Chelo Alonso, a barbarian queen becomes his love interest. Talk about a beauty.....she is a dancer and a romancer. Reeves tries not to get too involved with her but that is a lost cause. Check out the scene with Reeves in a test of strength pulls two horses with his hands tied to a pair of ropes....then he pulls down a slew of barbarians trying to pull him into a sword pit on a wall.....great stuff for the kids and the Saturday afternoon matinée crowd. Reeves ripling, bulging muscles are shown to the max in those scenes. By the end of the film Reeves and his men wipe out the barbarians including their leader and all is well. Final scene shows Reeves riding off into the sunset with Alonso sitting on his saddle.....at that time Reeves was the king of the muscleman movies with three blockbusters to his credit. All the muscleman actors that followed were no match for the physique and looks of Mr. Reeves. He certainly was the king of the Italian muscleman flicks.

This is probably the guiltiest pleasure of any of the late 50's, early 60's European peplum movies. Released in the US by American International Pictures (under the supervision of Arkoff and Nicholson), this picture was an amazing box-office coup for that studio and one of the most memorable exploitation pics of it's day. Though this film is less famous than his star-making vehicle, HERCULES, Mr. Universe Steve Reeves is on display to much better advantage here, and thanks to the extraordinary participation of the fabulous Cuban beauty, Chelo Alonso, more memorable, too. These two superstructures were, and probably still are, the stuff of adolescent daydreams and adult fetishes. This sword-and-sandal flick is pure sexist fun and exemplifies an era in films when marketing a movie was practically an art form in itself, instead of the crass, big-business system it is today. Hopefully someone can bring this potboiler to DVD in a widescreen version that does it some justice. Aside from Steve and Chelo, there's a memorable music score by AIP's lead music director, Les Baxter, which was used to perk up a lot of the muscleman epics of the time. I think the title card for this picture, paraphrased, says it all: "569 A.D. A TIME, WHEN, IF YOU DIDN'T FIGHT OR LOVE, LIFE WAS A VERY SHORT AND DULL AFFAIR." Stop the presses! You gotta love that! Enjoy.