Robert Siodmak is a legend ! A career which spanned almost half a century , began in the silent age ("Menschen am Sonntag" ) ,continued in France after he was driven away from his land by the Nazis ("pièges" "Mollenard ,capitaine corsaire) reached peaks of film noir in America ("the killers" " the dark mirror" "the spiral staircase " "cry of the city" ,to name but four) ;back in Germany ,he was to produce more great works such as "die Ratten " or " Nachts,wenn der Teufel kam".
In the sixties he was doing movies which were not really personal (with the exception of "tunnel 28" ,about the wall of Berlin) ,potboilers , but not uninteresting ("der Schut " is a fine adventures yarn )
The peplum (sword and sandals ) genre was a bit obsolete in the late sixties,whereas it was a dominant one earlier ; this one has an international cast ,with big names,which was not often the case in early Italian peplums ;no muscle man but a bevy of famous stars even Orson Welles-who really seemed to consider Siodmak's film a potboiler and quickly quit the screen after two scenes (the first one ending with a nonchalant "let's pray".)
Forget history and you almost have a pilot for an imaginary miniseries (although there's a second episode , there are so many subplots you can't count them all ); the Honor Blackman/Bergmanian Harriet Anderson feud, the Roman girl in love with a Goth count , their king forced to marry a princess and to -reluctantly- renege on his peasant wife (in the meantime ,their beloved son has been taken hostage )...history is only a vague background ,very storylike .
Siodmak nevertheless showed he had not lost his flair for film noir : Blackman's deadly bath is worthy of his scary movies ; the film abruptly ends ,to make the audience come back and see the second installment .
Of course it does not compare favorably with most of the director's works, but it's entertaining stuff and ,athough not the epitaph the director deserved, you can save it (them,do not forget the second episode) for a rainy day.
