Il vendicatore mascherato

While the overthrowing-the-tyrant plot comes straight from the sword-and-sandal genre, the setting is not ancient Greece or Rome but rather Renaissance Venice in the year 1542. This gives the movie a certain freshness but those expecting lots of travelog shots may be disappointed. Most of the movie appears to have been filmed on studio sets.

Guy Madison may be too old and too "American" for his part, (his dialog sounds dubbed), but he makes a passable hero and both his leading ladies are suitably glamorous.

The plot moves at an efficient pace and is livened by such things as an archery contest, a falcon hunt, several swordfights, a collapsing bridge, and a dungeon-interrogation scene in which a bare-chested man is whipped, burned with a hot iron, and finally garroted.