A terrible pirate terrorizes the Antilles plundering ships, he's Murad (Daniele Vargas) and nicknamed The Sea Beast. The latter is slaughtering their crews and selling women as slaves. One of the women (the pretty blonde Margaret Lee), princess of the Antilles Moana, escapes from Murad's clutches by means of a raft and is picked up in the middle of the sea by Samson (Kirk Morris), she asks him for help to free her enslaved servants who are about to be sold in the slave market of Devil's Island.
This B-movie mixes two subgenres from Italy from the sixties: the Peplum-style muscle film with the typical strongman hero and the adventures of Italian pirates. Maybe the producers decided that most Maciste films got turned into Samson or Hercules anyway for the international market. Given the way Maciste or Hercules got around - to the courts of the Czar, in deep underground, in the court of the Great Khan, Medieval Spain , Inca empire or to 15th-century Scotland- why not have him turn up in what I assume to be the 17th century, smacking down pirates. Samson's uncanny strength takes on a nasty opponent, the pirate Murad, the sea beast, and Devil Island ruler: Daniele Vargas, the latter arranges a diabolically twisted device to test the hero's power: chaining him to two boats whose rowers try to force their way out to sea- and if Samson can't counter their pull, he'll be impaled by spears. Adding a lousy rubber crocodile that Samson does battle with in the last reel. The main question of the film in the following: Just what is Biblical hero Samson doing battling seventeenth century pirates?
The picture was well starred by Kirk Morris , he often dyed his pompadour-styled hair blond and he had a slight, sulky resemblance to Elvis Presley. Italian Kirk Morris -born Adriano Bellini- was born in the late 1930s and plucked from the canals of Venice for his go at moviedom . A gondolier when discovered by an Italian movie producer, he was deemed a perfect speciman to showcase their spectacles and a fitting hero to help offset the silly special effects and ridiculously dubbed dialogue and he was one of the very few Italian musclemen to achieve stardom in the sword and sandal/mythological sub-genre. This also made him one of the few leading performers who was able to speak the Italian dialog from the script. Morris eventually migrated to the United States where he went into the advertising field . Years later he returned to Italy and the movies , this time as a producer . If one must try to distinguish Kirk from the rest of the mythical musclemen such as Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott , Alan Steel or Sergio Ciani , Richard Harrison , Dan Vadis, Reg Park , Rock Stevens , Brad Harris , among others . Other than that his stoic posing of Hercules, Samson, Maciste and the others were no better or worse . Besides, appearing famous Eurotrash babes such as Margaret Lee who at that time was married to Klaus Kinski and provides the film's only pulchritude, as well as the beautiful Adriana Ambesi. And familiar Italian secondaries such as Daniele Vargas, Aldo Bufi Landi, Tullio Altamura, Attilio Dottesio, Andrea Scotti, John Bartha and Nello Pazzafini who often played bad guys.
The photography is the film's most attractive aspect, even though most of the action predominates. As it contains colorful cinematography in Eastmancolor by cameraman Augusto Tiezzi , being the exterior locations in Bertolazzi Film Studios, Peschiera del Garda, Verona, Veneto, Lake Garda, and Castello Scaligero di Lazise, Verona, Veneto, Italy. As well as a thrilling, pulsing and evocative musical score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino . The motion picture was middlingly but professionally directed by Tanio Boccia , whose pseudonym was Amerigo Anton . He directed some Spaghettis : Saguara , Kill or be Killed , Deadly Trackers and this Dio non paga il sabato (1967), but usually made Peplums, adventures and mini-epics , such as : Vendetta of Ivanhoe , La valle dell'eco tonante , Il dominatore del deserto , Maciste alla corte dello zar , I predoni della steppe , Sanson against pirates , Julio César,conqueror Gaul , Il trionfo di Maciste , Il conquistatore d'Orient , among others . Rating : 4.5/10 . Average , but acceptable and passable Pirate/muscleman movie. The only differences are that there are more ships than the ordinary Peplum and we get swordfighting and fireworks instead of liturgical dance. Even by Sword-and-Sandal standards, this one is mediocre and slightly weak. It's neither the best nor worst of its kind.
