Annibale

This material is difficult to see, the photography and color are not the best, and from time to time you see cut scenes. Poor Annibale that Hollywood never wanted to make a film about a real revolutionary and hero. This Italian film tries to give an idea of what Annibale did, but it might have a lot of invention. For example, I am not sure about his love for a woman called Sylvia, who was the nephew of Fabius. Annibale (Victor Mature) was famous because of using elephants in his battles. The animals are seen at the beginning of the film when Annibale and the troops were coming to Italy through very snowy roads in France, but at the time of the battles the elephants were not seen anymore. The force of antique Rome is once again shown here, the Romans were defeated at the beginning by the Annibale's troops, but once they got united in the Senate and all power was given to Fabius, Annibale started to loose.

This film is perhaps one of the first one of the then young Terence Hill. In addition, Victor Mature showed once again that he was probably the best actor in epic films. In my personal opinion, he was much better than Charlton Heston. The film can be seen, but one may need to read the history to know what was real or not.

I've red a lot about this figure and I got to admire it; I think he was in the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander when it comes to ancient history's generals. The involving tactic he used at Cannae is still studied in Military Academies around the world. He was an extremely clever man most educated for his time and he loved his country. The Crossing of the Alps back in 200 B.C. with an army and 30 war elephants can only be qualified as epic and a true highlight in Military history.

The guy sure deserved a better try in films. Italians were never good at making epic spectacular films, but Americans did some very good products and its a pity they were never interested in Hannibal.

Edgar Ulmer's film is slow, boring and irrelevant. It starts with the crossing of the Alps and ends after Cannae; that period was precisely Hannibal's most glorious when he moved through Italy (Rome's dominions back then) at will defeating the legions four times and retiring without ever being defeated. The movie doesn't transmit at all the real significance of such a quest against the most powerful nation of the ancient world in its own soil.

Victor Mature (Hannibal) was the master of overacting and he proofs it in this picture once more moving around with his usual 60's greasy hairdo. The rest of the cast is average or below average. The battles are not very realistic and the elephants that were used as today's tanks don't even look dangerous (even if you pass over that they were Indian elephants instead of African).

Don't waste your time on this one. The great general deserves a lot more and he sure gave a lot of material for a good script.

Although touted as a Grade-B epic, such a high rating is dubious. The acting is overwrought and the plot and narrative devices are poor. The most distinguishing characteristic of this film is the cinematography -- which is simply horrendous. Over and over, there are shots of the Carthaginian Army marching somewhere -- the problem is that the march order is more akin to a company of skirmishers than it is to an army of thousands on the march. Scenes are often so dark as to be indistinguishable, and battles look like company exercises.

The Roman defeat at Cannae was the worst loss suffered by any Western army in a single day in history. Historically, the four/eight legions(opinions vary to whether double legions were present) were surrounded and destroyed in place, often because the Romans were so compressed in space that they could not effectively engage. Yet, the movie battle shows a rather open battle with large areas of maneuverability.

Much is made of Hannibal's elephants, but one must understand that only eighteen of the beasts survived the crossing of the Alps. In effect, they were the Panzers of the ancient world -- and much more effective as a terror weapon threat than an actual force multiplier.

The sub-plot of a love interest is pure Hollywood Italia -- no basis in reality. And although Fabius Cunctator was a historical figure whose "Fabian tactics" were proved correct, the movie concludes before any mention of Scipio Africanus who eventually defeated Hannibal at Zama.

I don't know who the hell shot this, but I suppose I could glance at the credits and lay blame on the culprits, but since I'm lazy and irritated right now I'll just skip the formality and say that Victor Mature probably fired his agent several times over after being booked for this gig.

He is quite literally the only competent person thesping his role, all the while other actors are stiff, comical, and otherwise just plain unconvincing. But like I implied in my first paragraph, it's not even the acting (however bad by the supporting cast) that's the issue: It's the cinematography: It's the direction and shot set ups: It's poor scheduling of the extras so the most can be gotten out of them shot wise. It's everything from the awful costumes to the lack of historical accuracy, to the extreme lack of consistent production values.

The battle scenes are so poorly staged that you wonder who the hell was in charge of this thing. The acting, as mentioned, by all other than the lead (Mature) is some of the worst I've seen for a feature film. It's that bad.

Avoid this thing.

This makes a good addition to the Victor Mature section of your film library. But I was mostly disappointed in just about all the aspects. First the music in the background did not match the situation. Then the movie starts in the middle of Hannibal's life as he started over the mountains if you do not know the history then you will be lost thru the movie. The dubbed voices reminded me of the voices in "Fractured Fairy tales." The were all sort of squeaky and of course as in the tradition of dubbed Italian movies did not match the speech timing. The one exception was Victor he would show the right or left profile and read his likes perfectly. I don't know how he kept a straight face. By the way he was 45 at this time.

After he makes it over the mountains it becomes a love story between Hannibal and Sylvia the niece of the Roman determined to do Hannibal in. Even Hannibal's men think they are in trouble because Hannibal is gaw gaw over a Roman girl. Here uncle thinks she is a traitor but still loves her like a daughter.

A few wars with some so so elephant scenes and a lot of obviously fake blood. Hannibal's ex turns up and Sylvia runs off.

Will Hannibal and Sylvia ever get their lives together? Who wins the war? Why did they stop the story so abruptly?