A Vingança de Ursus

Made the same year as " Ursus e la ragazza tartara (1961)" ,these other Ursus adventures have nothing to do with it ;even the muscle man is not the same : Joe Robinson in the former ,Samson (sic) Burke in this one ;but both films have something in common: Ursus has almost always a brat on tow ;this kid sometimes plays the part of a supporter in a football game: "come on Ursus! come on!

The plot is childish : the noble king wants to marry his daughter to a treacherous sovereign of a kingdom bordering his ;Ursus ,secretly in love with the damsel (soon in distress) , accompanies and protects her during her trip to her future homeland and in the court of the fiancé .Double-dealer king's adviser (Gianni Rizzo , the regular baddie of the Italian sword and sandal ) will put a spoke in the giant's wheel.

I have never done this before, but I am writing a review specifically to tell you not to try to watch "La Vendetta di Ursus" (or "Vengeance of Ursus") from a particular DVD producer. That's because I found the DVD to be completely unwatchable and of such unacceptable quality I just gave up trying to see it.

Not surprisingly, the film I tried to see was from Alpha Video. Alpha is known for producing films that are in the public domain. And, since they are such a cut-rate producer, they do absolutely nothing to clean up the prints, nor do they provide any DVD extras or captioning. The only way I'd ever recommend them is if no other company has released the film--and unfortunately, this is often the case. The films they do bring us are wonderful to lovers of B-movies and silents...provided the prints are watchable.

The film was scratchy, completely bleached (you could barely tell it had even once been a color film it was so bad) and the film repeatedly jumped--with missing bits and pieces throughout the film. While I can ignore the scratchiness and washed out print, because often portions of sentences were omitted and the scenes jumped about due to missing frames, I just gave up and recommend you find another version if possible or just skip it entirely. After all, there must have been 29123491324 different Italian muscle-dramas from the era starring the likes of Hercules, Maciste, Ursus or Samson.

I'm not saying it's awful, but it's nothing to brag about. It's a typical, standard, low budget people of the time era of the peplum hype.

King Zagro is evil and has his "evil eyes" on Princess Sira. He wants to marry her and take over her kingdom. Sira is kidnapped, Ursus hears of it and races to save her from Zagro. Ursus then leads the revolt against Zagro.

It plays out very boringly. Nothing to see here unless you just like to watch Samson Burke half naked and showing off his pecks almost all of the time throughout the film.

2/10

Despite a meaningless title and a lead (Samson Burke!) who gives new meaning to the word "wooden", this is not too bad for what is essentially a formulaic muscleman effort. The plot is typically chockful of court intrigues within Ursus' camp – by way of the King's deceitful rotund consultant who contrives to have his own master killed, Ursus convicted of the crime and appointing bald-headed Livio Lorenzon (an above-average village who keeps a leopard for a pet) as his people's new ruler; a couple of attractive ladies: one good (Ursus' fiancée', of course) and one evil (who, clad in an iron mask, even disguises herself as the latter at the King's wedding ceremony!); and, to up the suspense factor somewhat, an independent-minded kid brother for the hero (from whom he tries to keep his superhuman past by posing as an indefatigable farmer)! For what it is worth, at one point the action once again requires Ursus to engage in a tug-of-war with a number of elephants…although here he needs their impending threat to his little sibling for him to eventually manage in suppressing them!

Revenge Of Ursus stars Canadian bodybuilder Samson Burke playing a superhero who wants to retire to his farm like Cincinnatus. But like Michael Corleone, they keep dragging him back in.

Ursus has an Opie like little brother in this film and they're both involved in the politics of two city states where the king of one state wants to marry the daughter of the king of the state where Ursus lives.

It's a political marriage in every sense of the word. A tyrant to his own people, the bad king desires nothing less than to marry the daughter then kill the father and claim both states. He's a Snidely Whiplash villain if I ever saw one.

This one is a little bit better than most of the peplum's I've been viewing lately.