Maciste nella valle dei Re

Ancient Egypt is being ravaged by Persia. The men are killed while the women are sent into slavery. Pharaoh Armiteo I gets betrayed by his Queen Smedes and murdered. His son Kenamun becomes the new Pharaoh, but the Queen brainwashes him with a magic amulet. While on his desert journeys, Kenamun had saved the life of strong man Maciste (Mark Forest). Maciste is dismayed by Kenamun's apparent turn against the people and intends to sneak into the palace to talk to the new Pharaoh.

This is an Italian sword and sandal flick. The production is pretty big and they did film a few scenes in Egypt. Surprisingly, muscle man Mark Forest is not necessarily the worst actor. He's not good, but he's not the worst. The problem is that there is plenty bad acting all over the place. This is safely secured in B-movie territory.

Evil Queen Smedes (Chelo Alonso) controls Persian-occupied Egypt while keeping her stepson-rightful ruler Kenamun (Angelo Zanolli)-under the influence of a mind-numbing medallion. Now, it's up to the mighty Maciste (Mark Forest) to lead a daring revolt in order to overthrow Smedes and restore Kenamun to the throne

Son of Samson is quite an atmospheric peplum with the desolate scenery adding to the feeling of helplessness and oppression the Egyptians feel. You actually feel like you're there - the scenery is quite vivid. Surprisingly, it's a bit bloody and brutal, for its time anyway. It has a good story, however, and the narrative unravels leisurely. Maybe it's a little laborious in pace. But it's intriguing and involving enough.

Mark Forest stars as Samson (or Maciste), a strongman figure with a keen sense of justice, a vast contrast to Chelo Alonso, who plays the evil Queen and steals the scene with her wicked ways. Does she get her just dessert? You'll have to watch to find out!

Better than expected wide-screen peplum, with fine exteriors shot in Egypt, and terrific Chelo Alonso as evil queen Smedes, who has time to do an exotic dance that is half belly dancing, half Cuban pelvis shaking, a plus that disappeared in her second foray into a Maciste film (in the land of the cyclops) the following year. Smedes is the treacherous wife of the Egyptian pharaoh, whom she kills according to the designs of Persian invaders, and tries to seduce the handsome Italian-American Mark Forest, in a good version of Maciste, who leads the people in a revolt against the wicked Smedes. As Steve Reeves, Forest also retired soon, investing their money and time on something else: Reeves in a ranch; Forest, teaching operatic singing.

Mark Forest (bodybuilder Lou Degni) provides the beef in this relatively lavish Egyptian-style muscleman movie, whose production design is quite good for a low-budget, Italian potboiler. But for those who enjoy the genre, the highlight is the voluptuous Chelo Alonso, whose elegantly stiff performance as the evil empress is supplanted by the delightful belly dance she performs to seduce our lifeless hero midway through the picture. Adolescent kitsch working extraordinarily well as a fetishistic flesh fantasy. Terrific.

Maciste was very useful for the Peplum genre since the Italian folk hero wasn't rooted in any particular mythological tradition. He could turn up anywhere, "born of the rock," as Maciste (Italian American bodybuilder Mark Forest, who also played Hercules this same year) explains in the first Maciste entry of the Peplum revival that began in the late 1950s. Here, he turns up in ancient Egypt, which is being overrun with Persian marauders aided by the evil Queen Smedes (Chelo Alonso), who in the first few minutes has her uncooperative Pharoah husband assassinated. A chance encounter has Maciste befriending the Pharoah's hapless son, who is eventually bewitched by the beguiling Alonso, but at least Maciste knows that the guy is basically okay.

There is the usual amount of double-crossing and mistaken ideas about various characters motivations, and most of the requite Peplum tropes, including the hero defeating lions and alligators and soldiers. Maciste gets several opportunities to perform feats of strength and Forest acquits himself well through all of it, flexing and looking strong. But this isn't one of the more engaging or entertaining entries in the genre, which was kicking into high gear. It's not as interesting as Forest's other 1960 Peplum, "Goliath and the Dragon" a.k.a. "The Revenge of Hercules." It largely wastes Alonso, who normally can be a dynamic presence in these films. She gets one decent dance number and has moderate fun trying to seduce Maciste, and of course she looks great and has good costumes. But the film could have done more with her, and suffers for not doing so.

The English-language version was retitled "Son of Samson," with some dialogue added about Maciste maybe being a son of Samson. It's unnecessary, doesn't make much sense, and doesn't really matter. Maciste was largely unfamiliar to non-Italian audiences, so most of the Maciste films were retitled with other heroes and often the character was called someone else. Here, at least, he gets to keep the name if not the title.