O Colosso de Roma

In this movie Gaius Mucius Scaevola, the heroic general goes down in history by being remembered by his act of bravery. When captured bythe Etruscans in 508 BC he puts his right hand, his sword hand, into the flames rather than become a traitor. That meant he had to use his left hand from then on and "Scaevola" today means " left handed" in Italian. Mucius saves his beloved Clelia from the tyrant Tarquinius, the last king of Rome who he kills in a duel and saves the newly Roman republic from their Etruscan overlords. This by far a better " Sword & Sandal movie with a love story, plenty of action, battles with spectacular scenery surrounding a historical backstage. Our hero Mucius, (Gordon Scott) played Tarzan in five films of the Tarzan series between 1955 and 1960. bcarruthers-76500

This Italian sword and sandal film tells a story from the early history of Rome. It's about the transition to the Roman Republic. It was directed by Giorgio FERRONI, who also made WHO BREAKS...PAYS (1975) with Brad HARRIS and Giancarlo PRETE.

In 510 B. C. In the 4th century BC, the Etruscan king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (Massimo SERATO) is expelled from Rome, which of course he cannot tolerate. He seeks support from his colleague King Porsenna (Roldano LUPI) in order to recapture Rome together. But the Romans are very motivated to defend their new freedom. The hardened fighter Gaius Mucius (Gordon SCOTT) sets out to eliminate the opposing kings. When that goes wrong, he holds his right fist into the fire and is henceforth nicknamed Scaevola (left-handed). Of course, that's not the end of the story, because Mucius, who is only left-handed, is still urgently needed...

After leaving Hollywood, Gordon SCOTT made one sword and sandal film after another at Rome's CINECITTA. This is quite successful in the numerous fight scenes, but offers too few surprises to be remembered for a long time. Gabriella PALLOTTA, Gabriele ANTONINI and Maria Pia CONTE can be seen in other roles.

What singles out this feature is the grandeur of the first 2 minutes. What follows is a presentation typical of so many other works of this genre. The musical overture towers over this work like a mountain over a rolling plain.

The musical overture, written by A. Francesco Lavagnino, the great prolific Italian composer of this era, is another inspiring work that convinces one that this composer could have been a giant among classical composers of an earlier time.

Another feature, Duel of the Champions, contains an overture of similar stature written by Lavagnino. So, enjoy the first 2 minutes, and if you like movies within this genre, you may find this entertaining as well. After all, Gordon Scott is a pretty good substitution for Steve Reeves.

These Peplum Studios movies based on ancient historical characters always seem to be better produced than their regular run of the mill sword and sandal 60s sentimentality. The version of this movie I saw was on DVD in widescreen 16:9 format and the print and sound quality seemed to be in quite good condition considering its age. It comes across as a min-epic based on the legendary hero of Rome, Gaius Mucius Scaevola, which lives up to a lot of expectations. Some gorgeous women are in it including the beautiful Gabriella Pallota as Cloelia. Mucius or Lucius, as he sounded like in the dialogue is a warrior played by Gordon Scott, our friend who played Tarzan from 1955 to 1960. He shows off his muscle man duties like picking up "heavy" plastic logs and throwing at the enemy soldiers. The rest of the movie is filled with a whole lot of battle scenes. Some of which I'm sure I've seen before. All in all it's a decent movie. The story was solid, well paced and the acting decent. What more can a man and his kids ask for? And Yes. There were no dragons or monsters in this one Brian Carruthers.

As far as the story goes, it's another one of those that had the potential to be good but falls flat on it's own script. Cinematography is ordinary, choppy at times. Directing is questionable, some of the shots are really bad. Acting seems okay, I can't hear their real voices it's originally in Italian and it's dubbed it into English but as far as I can tell the acting is fine. The voice actors did okay with the dubbing.

It's just flat, drab. It's not bad at all but really needed a bit more action to "dress it up". What action there is in the film is fine.

Once again we have out of this world costumes for the men, the Roman soldiers mainly (as usual). Standard stuff on the women. There are some cool prop weapons as with all peplum films.

4/10