a-east

Some reviewers have been decidedly unkind to this minor sword-and-sandal effort but those willing to indulge the sloppy dubbing, chopping editing, and murky prints may find a certain likable quality here. Think of it as an amateurish but enthusiastic high school play, or a big mutt who climbs in your lap and licks your face. Most of the faults cited by other reviewers can't be denied but the main problem here is Hercules' curious absence from the plot (due to injuries) for a 25-minute stretch in the middle of the movie. That's a real momentum killer. Did Reg Park become ill or otherwise unavailable during the filming and thus they had to film around him? (One fight sequence uses an obvious stand-in for Park, lending some support for this theory.) Yes, the monster is more laughable than frightening with a squawk like Rodan's, and disappointingly little is made of Hercules' superhuman strength. (He isn't even bare-chested very often.) Also note the puzzling Oriental decor in some of the palace interiors. However, if you're kind, all of these things might be viewed as part of the fun.

I wish that I, like reviewer Marek, had seen this at the age of 9. I would probably have been delighted by its many bursts of action, its muscular cast, its exotic locations, its handsomely-mounted look. However, while still admiring these virtues, as a grown-up I must point out the serious flaw which handicaps this movie. Call this the "divided hero" flaw. A pre-title sequence introduces us to Gordon Mitchell, a farmer whose refusal to give up his horses to the Romans condemns him to slave-labor on an aqueduct project. Then we meet Roger Browne, a Roman Tribune who seeks to treat slave-laborers in a fair and humane manner. Both these actors get star billing above the title and the script can't decide which one on which to concentrate. Is the movie about Gordon Mitchell's efforts to free himself from Roman bondage so he can return in peace to his farm? Or is the movie about Roger Browne's efforts to clear his name from false charges made by the villainous Gaius, (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart), so he can hold his head high when he marries his Roman fiancée? The movie's confusion about its central purpose is never fully resolved. And then there's that annoying midget. At least there's a lot of beefcake to look at while pondering these matters, though it takes quite awhile before Mitchell and Browne bare their nipples, and Browne's big bare-chest scene, when he sword-fights Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, is, alas, dimly lit.

A shirtless Robert Mitchum felt the sting of a lash across his bare back in the 1951 "His Kind of Woman." Now son Chris feels the sting of at least seven lashes across his bare back in this sloppy but lively made-in-Indonesia actioner. Thus the Mitchums qualify as one of filmdom's father-son victims-of-whipping combinations on the silver screen. (John Wayne was whipped in "The Conqueror" and son Ethan felt the lash in "Man Hunt." Errol Flynn was whipped in "Against All Flags" and son Sean received similar treatment in "Son of Captain Blood.") After his whipping, the shirtless Chris Mitchum then suffers electric shocks administered through a metal collar around his neck, but Chuck Norris underwent a similar torture in "Braddock: Missing in Action 3" some two years previously and Norris's torture scene was much superior. The rest of "American Hunter" is the usual mish-mash of action scenes which divert for the moment but which, like the lashes given to Chris Mitchum's back, don't leave any mark.