La venganza de Ursus

The evil King Zagro has designs on the beautiful Princess Sira. He wants to marry her so he can take over her kingdom and add it to his own. When Sira is kidnapped, Ursus leaves his farm to rescue her and to eventually lead a revolt against King Zagro.

Samson Burke is adequate as the muscle hero Ursus in this typical peplum interspersed with palace intrigue and coups here with evil king Zagro's plans being scuppered by Ursus, a pretty princess waiting to be saved. It's fairly standard but enjoyable enough with plenty of action to keep an average peplum fan happy. The fighting in particular is good with Ursus flinging and clobbering the thugs with abandonment. Trial that Ursus has to do prove his innocence is quite good, especially the bit where the elephant is pulling him to the arrow points sticking out of the wood. The only thing I didn't like was Ursus' kid brother as he was annoying and nosey.

Samson Burke (he of "Hercules Meets the 3 Stooges" fame), lantern-jawed and broad of back, plays the mythological Ursus, a man with a past, which is only hinted at in the beginning. He now farms with his puckish little brother, Durias, until called upon to confront the evil and scheming King Zagro and his toady, Lycurgas who are plotting to take over the neighboring kingdom of Leecha, through a marriage with King Altheus' lovely (in a 1960's Italian kind-of-way) daughter, Sirah (whew). The plot has lots of action, moves along swiftly, and as these things go, is "not bad", aided by the hero's skillful execution of flying drop kicks, airplane spins, and other impressive TV wrestling moves, and ending up with an early version of an Ironman Event, to test the truthfulness of Ursus' version of events (the schemers beg to differ). One small disconcerting note: the princess' voice sounds remarkably like it is dubbed by Kathy Lee Gifford.

Ursus is a farmer with a past that he won't tell his little brother. When a Princess he knows is attacked on the way to her wedding Ursus , with little brother in tow, head off to protect the fair maiden. Of course there are plots within plots so the simple drop off the princess trip becomes something else entirely.

This is a very good swords and sandal movie that has a lot going for it. A reasonably complicated plot, good acting, and excellent action sequences that make it appear that the filmmakers at least understood the value of decent production values. This is one that's worth watching if you run across it.

A Word of Warning: I've seen this film at least twice now and the prints, the Sinister Cinema print in particular, are extremely choppy, so much so that as much as ten minutes or more may have been lost to the bad nature of the prints.

Made the same year as " Ursus e la ragazza tartara (1961)" ,these other Ursus adventures have nothing to do with it ;even the muscle man is not the same : Joe Robinson in the former ,Samson (sic) Burke in this one ;but both films have something in common: Ursus has almost always a brat on tow ;this kid sometimes plays the part of a supporter in a football game: "come on Ursus! come on!

The plot is childish : the noble king wants to marry his daughter to a treacherous sovereign of a kingdom bordering his ;Ursus ,secretly in love with the damsel (soon in distress) , accompanies and protects her during her trip to her future homeland and in the court of the fiancé .Double-dealer king's adviser (Gianni Rizzo , the regular baddie of the Italian sword and sandal ) will put a spoke in the giant's wheel.

I'm not saying it's awful, but it's nothing to brag about. It's a typical, standard, low budget people of the time era of the peplum hype.

King Zagro is evil and has his "evil eyes" on Princess Sira. He wants to marry her and take over her kingdom. Sira is kidnapped, Ursus hears of it and races to save her from Zagro. Ursus then leads the revolt against Zagro.

It plays out very boringly. Nothing to see here unless you just like to watch Samson Burke half naked and showing off his pecks almost all of the time throughout the film.

2/10