O Leão de Thebas

What actually happened to the beautiful Helena after the Trojan War on the way back to Sparta to her old husband Menelaus? Homer and Herodotus give different answers.

The director Giorgio Ferroni gives us a third answer. With him, Helena (Yvonne FURNEAUX) ends up as a castaway in the land of the pharaohs, accompanied by her extremely strong bodyguard Arion (the body-built opera singer Mark FOREST). There, Massimo SERATO, Rosalba NERI and Pierre CRESSOY are both drawn into a crazy series of intrigues. It's good that Arion (in Herodotus he's still the guy with the dolphin) can fight so well! Against Cinecitta-known cascaders like Nello PAZZAFINI and the massive MESSINA brothers (Emilio and Roberto) he even manages to become the "Lion of Thebes"!

Honor where honor is due! But we know our sword and sandal films! Despite all the difficulties and surprises, the Greek beauty and her brave hero return home to Hellas. With a well-built lover like Arion at her side, Helena will be able to endure the Spartan conditions again.

When the Greek army conquers Troy, Helen is exiled from her city. Her loyal guard Arion and Helene ends up shipwrecked on the shores of Egypt, they meet a caravan in the desert and escape from them to Thebes. In the Egyptian city, the Pharaoh Ramses falls in love with Helen, and this ends up making her numerous enemies during her stay in Egypt. She ends up being blamed for the assassination of Ramses, and its up to Arion to save her from those who wish to harm her.

Mark Forest, the dependable star of musclebound adventures, stars in this peplum that comes across thoughtful with a fairly intelligent plot. It's a little quiet, unravels rather gradually. Yvonne Furneaux is more in the lead as the exiled Helen of Troy and Forest as her guardian , who, of course, fancies her. There's a fair amount of dialogue, the acting is good, the characters are little complex rather than the plain "I'm a good guy and he's the bad guy." Here, the playboy Ramses loses interest in Rosalba Neri when Helen comes along and wants to marry her. Jealous Neri wants to be rid of her but Helen reassures she doesn't fancy the playboy. But Helen fancies her guardian. Then there's the murder of the playboy and intrigue is added as well as the usual heroics. Ends with Helen getting a crushing reception under a stone grinding down towards her, and of course, the gallant Forest comes to the rescue, but before saving her he has a well-staged rough and tumble with a guard. I didn't find this a snore fest, but quite interesting and watchable.

One of the approximately 300 Italian peplum (sword and sandals) films made between 1957 and 1965, Lion of Thebes is unusual for a number of reasons: one, there is actually something like a coherent story rather than a simple collection of "strongman set pieces"; two, there is actually a fair amount of dialogue, and the acting is rather better than usual--one almost has the impression that the muscleman (Aryan) cares about what is happening; three, the film is a little more ethically ambiguous than usual: the good woman (Helen) and the "bad" woman (Naïs) actually want the same thing; the "usurper" is actually the proper heir to the throne; the wicked counselor is evil, but actually wants to save Thebes from its weak and careless leader. Peplums tend to range from laughably bad to simply agonizingly bad--this one's actually okay.

From the first scenes, you discover the predictable story proposed by the long chain of movies of genre. Virtues - the body of Mark Forest and the special beauty of Yvonne Furneaux , the ingrate Menelaus and, sure, the machine of death.

The result is charming for reasonable mix of Iliad and Old Egypt, silly mix of names = Amenofis, Tutmes, Ramses - and the lovely - conventional love story, after fights dosis.

Short - just nice.

In a beauty contest with contemporary Helen Diane Kruger in Petersen's extravaganza ,Yvonne Furneaux would certainly win hands down,weren't it only for her sublime eyes.

A "cultural" prologue tells us that the film was based on "documents" which would tend to substantiate a thesis that,for Helen,there was a life after Troy.And that she and Menelas were not exactly the best of friends when the war came to an end .I doubt,however,that a junior high school student would get an A plus if he wrote his essay about Helen's fate after watching this flick.

The star is actually Mark Forest a muscle man ,who left reportedly sword and sandals for the opera ,but his acting is so wooden that Yvonne Furneaux's beauty (a French Helen,why not?) is the main attraction.

The story? Helen and her attentive escort Arion arrive in Egypt where they are taken in by the pharaoh.Of course Helen's beauty is bound to cause more disasters but there are plenty of villains around including her hubby himself.Poor Helen is accused of pharaoh's murder and sentenced to a horrible death ( crushed between two stones).There are lots of treasons,murders,even a trial ,in a cheap Thebes.

Girogio Ferroni had directed another movie about Troy with Steve Reeves but he did not use the same actress for Helen:Yvonne Furneaux is an improvement on the former actress,this is the only nice thing I can say about "Leone di Tebe"