Ulysse contre Hercule

Hilarious mythological fantasy movie which is helped a lot by the excellent performance of Georges Marchal as Ulysses, the rare case of a good actor in the genre of muscles and blank expressions. Ulysses is chased by his enemy Heracles (Mike Lane) after he sank his ship, but once they spend a night captured together to become food for a vulture god, they have plenty of time to talk to each other, realize that they are not so different after all and decide to face more adventures together, fighting an evil king of ugly Neanderthal men. The movie may border on the ridiculous with the dancing bird-men for example, but it is really enjoyable. Director Caiano manages to get me on the edge of my seat with scenes like the stone platform slowly coming down towards Ulysses to crush him (or not). Mario Caiano went on to make more watchable genre flicks like "Erik the Viking" with Giuliano Gemma or "Two Gladiators" with Richard Harrison.

I only needed to hear the "Mighty Sons of Hercules"-song in the beginning to get in a good mood from this film. A really pulpy and entertaining peplum with some fantastic ingredients, my favorites being the vulture-people and their bigbreasted queen (who of course falls in love with both Hercules and Ulisses). The non-plot is basically that Hercules is on a mission from the gods to find and capture Ulisses for blinding the Cyklops. Ulisses outsmarts Hercules and manages to escape, encounters some fantastic creatures or evil queens, is captured again, outsmarts Hercules, escapes, encounters creatures etc. in absurdum. Of course the two heroes finally becomes the best of friends and joins forces to defeat the evil king Lagos (wonderfully played by Gianni Santuccio), a sweaty, sickly and rambling madmen who likes to torture women and uses his army of neanderthal men to pillage the nearby villages in quest for total power. Great silly fun.

Sandals film goes BuddyMovie: Georges Marchal and Michael Lane as pretty much best friends

After Poseidon's favorite Polyphemos is blinded, Heracles (US muscleman Mike Lane) is supposed to bring the clever Odysseus (Georges Marchal) to reason. The demigod doesn't need to be told twice and takes the scheming schemer from Ithaca to task. Of course, this cannot be achieved without complications. In the face of impending dangers from outside, the two hunky musclemen pull together and realize the value of true male friendship...

Director Mario Caiano has presented an at least unusual approach to the peplum genre by essentially discovering the buddy movie in the sandal film. Of course, there are also beautiful women who need to be saved from numerous dangers. Alessandra Panaro, Dominique Boschero and the Italian television legend Raffaella Carra take on this task.

It was shot on the Canary Islands, which is also rather unusual for a sandal film. 341,000 tickets were sold in West German cinemas.

Certainly not a masterpiece of the genre, but very varied and enjoyable!

Poseidon seizes the opportunity to exact revenge on Ulysses (Georges Marchal) for blinding his son, Polyphemus. Of course, he fails to mention that Cyclops wanted to eat Ulysses' men, but it doesn't matter, because no matter the circumstances, a mortal has no right to kill gods or their offspring.

So Zeus sends his son Hercules (Mike Lane) to capture Ulysses and bring him to Polyphemus' island so that he can take revenge on him. Ulysses and his men are on their way back from Troy to Ithaca, eager to finally see his wife Penelope again, when a Phoenician ship attacks them. Hercules is on board, having promised the Phoenician captain a large reward if Ulysses can be captured. The venture initially succeeds, and the hero of Troy is captured. In the ship's hold, however, Ulysses frees himself from his bonds with the help of a fire, setting the Phoenician ship ablaze.

Swimming, Ulysses, followed shortly after by Hercules, reach the mainland, where they fall into the hands of bloodthirsty bird-men and their mother hen/queen Aria (Dominique Boschero). Using flattery, the two heroes try to dissuade Aria from making a sacrifice to the bird god, and they manage to escape. Shortly thereafter, Ulysses tricks Hercules and continues his journey alone, but is captured by cavemen under the command of the half-mad King Lagos (Gianni Santuccio), who is terrorizing the neighboring kingdom of King Ircanus. Ircanus is, of course, the father of Hercules' beloved Helen, who is promised to the primitive Prince Adastro (Raf Baldassarre).

And so, Hercules hopes that by destroying King Lagos and his horrifying subjects, he will be allowed to marry Helen as a reward. In doing so, he will also be able to free Ulysses and hand him over to Polyphemus. But by now, the two heroes have developed a deep respect for each other, and when Ulysses finally frees Helen, who had been kidnapped by Adastro, can Hercules bring himself to abandon Ulysses to death and Polyphemus's stomach?

Hercules against Ulysses is one fun peplum, very well-paced, sharply shot in beautiful natural settings. The plot is constantly moving; it's very adventurous with one plot thread leading to one problem to another such as a burning ship, bird men and cave dwellers. There's a cliffhanger in the form of a wall coming down to crush the hero, and it's quite suspenseful. The sword fight between Ulysses and Prince Adrasto was energetically done, as was the battle scene, though a little clumsy in parts.

What sets this apart from other Hercules' films is its intelligence - theres more talking, engaging interplay between Hercules and Ulysses. Liked the battle of wits between Ulysses and King Lagos - found the flying attempts in which Lagos asks Ulysses to build a contraption so he can fly quite funny. He obliges and attaches the "wings" to Lagos, who realises it could be a way to kill him, so Lagos asks him to try the "wings", and Ulysses replies that he can but warns him that if it works he will escape and if it doesn't then he will die and Lagos will be deprived of his wisdom! Instead a cave dweller straps on the wings and doesn't fly. Lagos is angry, but Ulysses calmly replies he didn't flap his wings!

Also there's a dreamy atmosphere about the film, which I loved, and there's nary a dull moment. George Marchal is excellent as Ulysses, looks the part as does Mike Lane; their chemistry is very good.

Ulysess versus Heracles is a good example of Italian sword and sandal epics. Ignore the really bad dubbing, they don't seem to realize Mike Lane is playing Hercules and not his son, and you'll see a fun film. Georges Marchal isn't known to me, but he's quite good at Ulysess.

Ulisee has offended the Gods and Heracles is sent to punish him. They encounter some crazed bird-men who are ruled by a beautiful queen, check the outfits on this one! Then Ulisee is captured by a crazed Tyrant who rules over cave-men and its up to Herc to rescue him. The scene of ulisee nearly being crushed by a descending stone ceiling is very well done.

Near the end, Ulisee shows his honor and saves Herc's girl from certain death, even when he has the chance to escape and get back to his faithful Penelope. Impressed, Hercules implores his Father, Zeus, to forgive Ulysses. Its one of the most beautiful prayers I've ever heard in a movie like this. Lane and Marchal are excellent, the girls are pretty and the film moves rather well. Lane plays Herc as strong, but not invincible, which helps. A lot of fun.