L'esclave d'Orient

It doesn't take one long to realise that this an above average 'peplum, sword and sandals' movie . Directed by veteran Mario Bonnard this is shot by Tino Santoni in glorious Ferraniacolor with a tremendous score by Antonioni's preferred composer Giovanni Fusco. The cast is 'intriguing'. Clara Calamai makes the best of a thankless role having impressed the previous year as the prostitute in Visconti's underrated 'White Nights'. Former model Isabelle Corey, more than just a pretty face, was spotted by Melville who cast her in 'Bob le Flambeur' and fared very well in European films thereafter. Irene Tunc, a former Miss France, plays her role of the sensuous, manipulative Diala with relish and she has as her slave the American John Kitzmiller. As a soldier he had been part of the force that liberated Italy in World War Two and stayed there to forge a career. Sadly this career declined rapidly. Most viewers will recognise him as Quarrel in 'Dr. No'. This film holds the attention and is free of those unintentionally funny moments that very often mar films of this type. The finale has a heavenly chorus in true Hollywood mode but we have a distinctly non-Hollywood image of a crucifix around which is the inscription 'On this sign thou shalt conquer', in Latin! As a postscript, Sergio Leone is assistant director here. When Bonnard proved too ill to complete 'Last days of Pompeii' Leone stepped up to the plate.

The 50's and 60's made fantastic historical movies, and this was quite epic and beautiful but what let it down for me was its blatant Christian dogma. The sentence "A goddess that no longer exists" was quite obvious a dig at polytheist beliefs. It was the 1950's so one would expect them to be very rigid and putting in Christian messages in films all the time. The rest of the film besides that was okay.

Roman Emperor Nero has recently visited Corinth and left "Antigono" (Ivo Garrani) in charge. He is determined to build a magnificent temple to Aphrodite and to pay for this he must tax and enslave some of his people - and that earns him the enmity of just about everyone. Meantime, sculptor "Demetrius" (Anthony Steffen) is charged with crafting the face of the goddess, but when he is accidentally taken prisoner encounters the slave "Lerna" (Isabelle Corey) with whom he falls madly in love. It's never going to be simple for this couple, though, as the scheming "Diala" (Irène Tunc) has her own plans and then there's also a rather ghastly plague that many think is a result of the god's displeasure with the increasing number of Christians being tolerated. To that end, "Antigono" does his own mini-Nero and orders that these religious interlopers be sacrificed. Might this appease his increasingly restless population or might someone come to the rescue of the couple before they become lion fodder? The production detail here is really quite decent, with plenty of attention paid to the sets and costumes as the drama unfolds. There's also a fair amount of swordplay and plenty of conniving going on too. Sadly, the staccato nature of the dialogue drags it down a little and I'm afraid I just found Corey and Steffen about as wooden as a pair of rudii, but that said it's an enjoyably paced and quite entertaining drama that easily passed ninety minutes. Keep an eye out for Massimo Serato - he'd have made a good "Bond" villain, I think.

AD 67. The artist Demetrio (Anthony Steffen) is at Corinth as a guest of Antigono (Ivo Garrani) when he falls in love with the poor innocent slave girl Lerna (Isabelle Corey). Yet the wicked Diala (Irène Tunc) is also interested in the handsome young Demetrio whilst pretending to care only for the rich old Antigono. Now that story is not complicated, really, and further on, it follows a safe path of morality when Lerna sympathizes with a (very early) group of Christians and Demetrio gets baptized, although they are all in danger of getting burned for sacrifice. Note this was released a year before Wyler's 'Ben Hur' so it is not a follow-up to its success, even if the impression may occur.

Demetrio makes an unusual hero for the Italian variety of the sword and sandals genre, because he is not the muscular Hercules/Maciste type, instead a sensitive artist with dialog lines like "She is the symbol of a goddess who does not exist anymore", when he describes his statue of Diala posing as Aphrodite. But as the Latin saying goes, "ars longa, vita brevis est"... Also a point of interest is that the famous Sergio Leone co-wrote the script and was assistant director to Mario Bonnard. Voted 6/10.

APHRODITE, GODDESS OF LOVE is a straightforward costume drama from Italy. Bizarrely, the version I watched on Amazon Prime was dubbed into French with English subtitles. The film has more in common with the staged and old-fashioned costume dramas of the 1950s than the all-action sword and sandal excitement of the post-HERCULES peplum wave, but fans of Italian cinema will probably still enjoy it.

The film tells the intriguing tale of Antigone, a man obsessed with building a temple to the titular deity. Unfortunately his plans are thwarted by plague and a disgruntled populace, and he turns on the Christians in the vicinity as a result. The main character in the film, Demetrius, is a sculptor who falls in love with a Christian slave girl, with harrowing results.

This story is well mounted by genre standards and very colourful. The costumes look and feel authentic. Sergio Leone had a hand in the script and also worked on the story as assistant director. Fans of Italian cinema will spot the likes of Anthony Steffen as the skinny hero alongside bit parts from Paul Muller and Massimo Serato. Best of the lot is Ivo Garrani's delightfully scheming Antigone.