L'eroe di Babilonia

The tyrant Balthazar (habitual nasty Spaghetti Western , Folco Lulli), usurper of Babylone , rules the city with violence and atrocities . He organizes continuous sacrifices of maids along with the priestess (Moira Orfei , Peplum usual , along with her sister Liana Orfei) of Astarte . Nippur (Gordon Scott , here one of the few movies to show him with chest hair) , legitimate heir of throne , returns from exile with aim to retrieve the kingdom left by his father Sargon , kidnapped by Balthazar . During his journey , Nippur frees Tamira (Genevieve Grad ), a Jewish girl prepared to be sacrificed for Goddess Ishtar . Nippur is imprisoned by the usurper , but he escapes and is helped by king Persian Cyrus (Mario Petri).

This is an agreeable Sword and Sandals movie with noisy action , extraordinary adventures , usual dancing scenes and spectacular final battle . Gordon Scott is nice as the mythical hero who finds several dangerous situations while attempting save his lover and recover the throne . He acted as a bouncing hero in great number of films and was randomly assigned the identity of Hércules , Goliath , Samsom for US viewers . Scott usually playing historic characters , such as ¨Coroliano¨, ¨Mucius Scevola¨ and ¨Remo¨. He was one along with Ed Fury, Dan Vadis, Alain Steel , Mark Forest, Reg Park , among others, whom the seek fame and fortune acting absurdly muscle mythological figures, but nobody topped Steve Reeves and Gordon Scott in popularity.

The film follows a similar plot to famous film ¨Intolerance¨ (1916) by D.W. Griffith , about fall of Babylone , though here appears a pretty malicious Balthazar , well played by Folco Lulli , but not the biblical history about 'prophet Daniel and the lions' . However , the movie has not mythological accuracy , neither expecting historical . Other pictures about these Babylonic events are the followings : ¨I Semiramide (1953)¨ by Primo Zeglio with Ivonne Furneaux and John Erickson ; ¨Semiramis, slave and Queen¨ by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia ; and ¨Seven thunderbolts(1962)¨ by Silvio Amadio with Jackie Lane and Howard Duff .

Say what you want about the genre of sword and sandal films. Without any historical credibility whatsoever or any similarities with the historical/mythical characters that give the heroes their names some muscle men, mostly American bodybuilders fight for freedom and glory somewhere in the ancient world. This time around it's Gordon Scott as prince Nippur (name taken from an ancient Summerian city located in modern day Iraq) returning from exile after calls from the oppressed people of Babylon, tormented by their usurper with slavery and human sacrifices. In the tradition of Samson and Hercules prince Nippur has superhuman strength, hence overpowering the evil forces to bring freedom and justice back to the empire. Sounds a bit like Anakin Skywalkers/Darth Vaders monologue before the climatic battle at the end of Star Wars Episode 3, though the story is a little too interlaced for film of that length. I like this cheesy flicks on a lazy Saturday morning like today, especially as I', down with a cold, the downside of this movie is that there are way too many characters, both good and evil,too long scenes of sacrifices and random violence against the slaved populace - I mean we get it, the bad guy is REALLY bad - and stereotypical scenes where the trapped or chained hero overcomes all odds in a heroic display of his power to jump in for the rescue at the end. It is entertaining, no doubts there, but with a dozen women wearing same or similar wigs all guys wearing fake beards and armor it's kinda hard to follow the story in detail. You leave for 5 minutes and you don't know what happened cause all throughout the flick new characters are introduced - or killed. The story itself is very interchangeable, so if you'd put in Hercules and a Greek polis where this stuff had happened, it would have worked just as well. For situations like mine atm, where I can't do anything else anyways this film is good, would have been perfect if the storyline was more simple, but other than that it has most things that makes a cheesy sword and sandal flick so entertaining. Silly costumes, bad acting, bad fake beards, bad wigs, random backdrops from obviously various other productions and lots of scenes where a muscle man can show his biceps. 4 or 10 points, however quite entertaining.

I first saw this movie when it was on TV in the "old days". It is still a fantastic adventure movie. Great story and excellent action filming. I now have 3 great color version that all have bits and pieces missing or misplaced. It is better than no copies at all. If you like great adventure and admire Gordon Scott, find a copy of this movie and have fun.

This typical peplum featuring Gordon Scott would like to be something more than what it actually is, since the star is not some muscle-bound historical figure (which he would often get to play) but rather the returning son of a deposed king; even so, an alternate title for this was THE BEAST OF BABYLON AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES, adopted for commercial TV screenings! Still, before long, Scott is fighting off the villain's soldiers single-handedly, throwing the latter around as if they were puppets and flattening three of them at once with a log, and removing a series of prison shackles by a mere exertion of his muscles!

As usual, among the members of the rebellion against the tyrant in power (an appropriately sinister Piero Lulli, further distinguished by sporting an elaborate head-dress) is a girl whom the hero contrives to save against all odds and fall for, ensuring that when he eventually gains the throne for himself (since his father, thought a prisoner, is really dead) there will be a Queen ready to take her place by his side!; the villain, too, has a companion in evil i.e. genre fixture (and future circus owner!) Moira Orfei. By the way, the only credits to appear on the print I watched where those of the male lead and the film's very title!

The young Nippur (Gordon SCOTT) returns to his homeland of Babylon after a long stay at the court of the Persian King Cyrus (Mario PETRI). His cousin Balthasar (Piero LULLI), who is under the ominous influence of a beautiful priestess named Ura (Moira ORFEI), now rules there. There are bound to be conflicts in which the young Tamira (Genevieve GRAD) also plays a major role.

This time the Italian sword and sandal film takes us to the time around 539 BC, when a certain Belshazzar ruled in Babylon and got into a major conflict with the Great King Cyrus. This film by Siro MARCELLINI is certainly not one of the best examples of the peplum cinema from the Roman film factory CINECITTA. Good entertainment for fans of the genre is guaranteed. The American bodybuilder and ex-Tarzan actor Gordon SCOTT cuts a dazzling figure as a champion of good. And a year later Genevieve GRAD would become the daughter of the GENDARM OF SAINT TROPEZ, played by the unforgettable Louis De FUNES.

In Italian cinemas, the rather modestly equipped sword and sandals film grossed 195 million ITL, while in West German cinemas it grossed the equivalent of around 350,000 EURO (from 358,000 cinema visits).