La Charge des Cosaques

Italian adventure with intrepid rebels and exotic scenarios . An enjoyable adventure movie with historical backstage , action , thrills , love , battles and spectacular scenarios . The story of Hadji Murad (Steve Reeves), a 19th-century Chechen chieftain who led his warriors in a fight against the invading forces of the Russian Czar , Nicholas I (Zivanovic) . Along the way Murat takes on a traitor named Ahmed Khan (Renato Baldini) , Prince Sergei Vorontzov (Gérard Herter) and falls in love for Sultanet, Aslan Bey's Daughter (Giorgia Moll) and Princess Maria Vorontsova (Scilla Gabel) .

The film is a passable adventure movie, lavishly produced , a lot of extras and usual dancing scenes in charge of gorgeous dancers . This classic story of romantic adventure come to life enriched by Technicolor cinematography in charge of Maria Bava , the notorious cameraman and filmmaker , and adapted regularly to the screen . However , being necessary a right remastering for the washed-out copy . The movie suffered several cuts by Italian censorship and was based on a book by Leo Tolstoy, who in turn based the book on his experiences in the Russian army in Chechnya when his unit was sent to help subdue Chechen guerrillas . Overwhelming battles and duels and full of villainy , romance , and heroism . Evocative as well as atmospheric musical score by Roberto Nicolisi . Steve Reeves is cool as the hero who encounters dangerous situations while trying retrieve his lover . Reeves acted as a corpulent hero in several movies, starring historic and legendary characters, such as ¨Romulus¨ in Romulus and Remo ; ¨Phillipides¨ in Giant of Marathon; ¨Eneas¨ in The war of the Trojan and The horse of Trojan ; ¨Glaucus¨ in The last days of Pompei and ¨Hercules¨ in the Queen of Lydia. He starred several adventure films such as ¨Thief of Baghdad , Morgan the Pirate¨, ¨The avenger¨, ¨Pirates of seven seas¨ , among others . In the picture appears usual secondaries and familiar faces from Peplum and Spaghetti Western such as Gerard Herter , Renato Baldini , Goffredo Unger , among others.

The motion picture was middlingly directed by Riccardo Freda who used a number of aliases during his career, including Robert Hampton or George Lincoln and as screenwriter Riccardo Freda . Riccardo is a classic director who realized all kind of genres . Freda along with Vittorio Cottafavi continued to realize films in the historical-spectacular style , at which he developed a considerable skill and mastery . From the mid-50s Freda's liking make for atmospheric and colorful scenes of shock began to itself apparent , especially in such musclemen epics as ¨Teodora¨ , ¨Spartacus¨ , ¨Giants of Thessaly¨ , ¨The seventh sword¨ , ¨Samson of the 7 miracles of the world¨ , ¨Sins of Rome¨¨Maciste all's inferno ¨, the latter a gripping/horror Peplum and of course ¨Maciste in the court of the Great Khan¨, one of his best films . In the early 60s , he was a pioneer in Italy of horror-fantasy films frightening audiences the world over , especially with ¨I Vampiri¨ and ¨L'Orrible Segreto del Dottor Hitchcock¨ as he combined with that wide-staring of actress , the British-born Barbara Steele . He also made adventures as ¨Black Eagle¨ , ¨The son of Black Eagle¨ , ¨White devil¨ , ¨Son of D'Artagnan¨ , ¨The Mongols¨ and uncredited ¨Daughter of D'Artagnan¨ . From there he went to melodrama and spy films as ¨¨Mexican Slayride¨and ¨Coplan FX18¨ and even made some western as ¨No killing without dollars¨ with Mark Damon and signed under pseudonym as George Lincoln . Strong on visual style, Freda's movies had popular appeal , and were usually commercial hits . Several were French/Spanish/Italian or other European co-productions . He has been called a filmmaker "who brings some style to exploitation pictures", and has something of a cult following .

This film is set during the mid-19th century when Russia flexed its empire-building muscles. The mountain tribes of the Caucusus rebelled against the Russian domination. The region is on the border of the southern most part of Russia today. The princess, who takes a trip to deliver the Czar's new orders to her husband, had to travel more than about 1,500 miles from St. Petersburg.

Steve Reeves play the lead role of Hadji Murad. The movie is based on a novel by that name written by Leo Tolstoy. Some of its account of the years of struggle in the Caucusus is fiction. But, many of the specific incidents did occur. In reality, a reading of a short bio or encyclopedia article on Hadji Murad would convince one that his escapades in this film were quite tame by comparison.

"The White Warrior" is an interesting film about a time and place for which American's have only occasionally shown interest. Still, it has historical value, and is based on a famous author's book of fiction.

Not the greatest film, but not as "tiresome" as Leonard Maltin claims in his review. (Leonard has seen so many films, he apparently gets tired easily -- See IMDB's sidebar link.) The wonderful thing about this film is its decision to cover a subject area that is largely unknown to Western audiences. Indeed, we Westerners didn't have any idea about this area of the world until the fall of the Soviet Union, where a lot of these mysterious countries emerged with an "an" at the end: Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and the like... largely Turkic regions and nations. Of course, Turks are almost always treated as villains in Western films (Another group that's usually villainous in cinema are the Arabs; however in a rare film where the Arabs were the heroes, "Lawrence of Arabia," the Turks were still the villains).

Now the Turks are not the heroes in this film, per se (not the Turks of today's Turkey, or the then-Ottoman Empire) but various Turkic tribes in the Caucasus (in the film, they're referred to as "tribesmen," "Caucasian," once as "Muslims," or -- derogatorily by the Russians --as "Savages." Probably using the word "Turk" would have been risky, as the Western audience might then lose its sympathy for the film's heroes). In the declining years of the Ottoman Empire, mighty Czarist Russia instigated many wars against the Ottomans, taking good advantage of their weakened state.

The thing I found interesting is that Czarist Russia is often depicted in American and other Western films as noble and heroic... I guess it's the Christian connection. In this film, based on a novel by Tolstoy, the Russians are hinted at as the bloodthirsty oppressors they were. I'm influenced by a rare book, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims" by Prof. Justin McCarthy, which showed the unbelievable magnitude of the evil and inhumanity displayed by the Russians, and others, including Bulgars and Armenians. Turkish or Muslim lives are not as important, and this part of history is very unknown to us Westerners. I doubt this subject matter would be chosen in an American film, and if it wasn't for Tolstoy's book, probably the Italians would have been unaware of the subject matter themselves, when they tried to choose an adventurous vehicle for Steve Reeves.

At the beginning of the film when Hadji Murad attacks Russian troops down a lonely road, Robin Hood-style, he meets with the "Maid Marian," Russian princess Maria. When she makes a statement regarding the superiority of Russian soldiers, Murad replies that his tribe kills only soldiers, whereas the Russians slaughter women and children. I'm reminded of the fighters in Chechnya following the same procedure (generally)... they wouldn't target innocent Russian civilians (other than terrorist attacks) during the first phase of their recent struggle, a few years ago. During the second phase, when the Russians invaded again, the Russians murder, rob and rape as indiscriminately as they have done in centuries past. Now that the Chechnyans (is it Chechens?) are no longer winning, there has been a general news black-out in the American media... but their struggle is still a continuation of freeing themselves from Russian domination in the Caucasus that "The White Warrior" is about.

I thought Steve Reeves had a surprising charisma... obviously, he was hired for these kinds of films for his spectacular build and not for his great acting ability, but he came across as a likable and believable hero in this one.

It is such an annoyance to watch mutilated foreign films, specially Italian productions as in this case, which was obviously a well- mounted co-production, benefiting from the participation of the Yugoslavian film industry which provided beautiful art direction and bright choreography, as well as fine performers, combined with Italian professionals: cinematographer Mario Bava (a year before making his first feature, "La maschera del demonio"), composer Roberto Nicolosi and director Riccardo Freda, all working in beautiful scenery and sets. The version I just saw is English-dubbed and 10 minutes shorter than the original (even with the restoration of some footage that had originally been censored in Spain, where my copy was issued): it is a strange mixture of average-looking sections with others that seemed to come from a blown-up VHS copy. "Agi Murad" though is an attractive wide-screen adventure film with a touch of history, in spite of being not very well acted by Steve Reeves, who this time seems a little beyond his scope for the title role in the dramatic scenes, but he compensates his shortcoming in the action scenes and has Gérard Herter to counteract as he chews the scenery playing the Russian villain, and sexy Scilla Gabel as his scheming wife, who has fallen for the "White Devil", as Murad is called. By the state the home-video business is in these days, it is a pity that we will probably never be able to watch these films in their original form.

This is another of those films that I was introduced to as a kid via a still in my Dad's scrapbook of movie posters which he collected during his own childhood; curiously enough, as far as I know, it was never broadcast on any of the basic Italian TV channels. In fact, I only came across a copy of it a few years ago by way of an Italian satellite TV screening that dates back from 2005; unfortunately, the channel's cumbersome announcement for the film we are presently watching goes on for its first 5 minutes and the print itself bore intermittent instances of jerkiness in the picture! At any rate, for being the only movie on which "Peplum" icon Steve Reeves was directed by the great Riccardo Freda, the end result was something of a letdown – frankly, it was one of the perennial "Euro-Cult" items of this year's Easter marathon I was looking forward to the most! In hindsight, the involvement of "directorial collaborator" Leopoldo Savona (a journeyman helmer of similar efforts) might have had something to do with that; for the record, Freda also helped out on the superior THE MONGOLS (1961), on which Savona handled the Italian side of a production that was officially credited to Hollywood director Andre' De Toth!

But let us get to the good stuff first: there are a couple of sequences or shots which do attest to Freda's directorial hand – the vividly depicted opening village raid by the Tsarist militia; the following sequence in which a steaming Tsar Nicholas I strips his generals of their medals for not having yet tamed a revolting band of Caucasian subjects (led by "The White Devil", Agi Murad), a cathartic ritual that is interrupted by his visiting future daughter-in-law (Scilla Gabel) to whom he professes and displays affections which go well beyond the paternal!; the Tsar's son (Gerard Herter) is memorably introduced via a low-angle shot while he is instructing his pet pooch in etiquette. The entire film also bears the unmistakable mark of its legendary cinematographer Mario Bava (still a year away from officially graduating to the director's chair) who bathes the proceedings in colourfully atmospheric hues. Roberto Nicolosi's musical accompaniment, then, is a decently rousing one as well.

This Italo-Yugoslavian co-production is marred by a clichéd script and an exceedingly low budget: Reeves is a widower in love with his son's governess (Giorgia Moll) who is also coveted by fellow rebel ring-leader Renato Baldini; this romantic rivalry augurs nothing but disaster for the Caucasian forces with Reeves' subsequent desertion (after the obligatory but totally gratuitous wrestling bout, of course) and apprehension by the enemy, Moll having to promise herself to Baldini in return for the life of Reeves' son; the death of their feeble and ineffectual figurehead; Reeves is tortured by Herter's men but a besotted Gabel intervenes, thus freeing him (Reeves rides a galloping horse all over the Tsarist palatial retreat) to reclaim his true love and pursue his real foe (the latter's death is particularly lame). For the record, Leonard Maltin's guide gives this a measly *1/2 rating and, while definitely not all that bad, I guess it should have alerted me not to raise my expectations too highly. Incidentally, I have also acquired a much earlier 1930 German film adaptation of the same Leo Tolstoy story co-starring Peter Lorre and I might get to give it a whirl presently, in the hope that it will be a more worthwhile rendition.