Ulysse contre Hercule

Well there are a few well done scenes I will grant you, the story is a bit entertaining, acting is fine, costumes standard - overall an okay film. Not my favorite Hercules film but a little entertaining.

Ulysses/Ulisse has angered the gods, mainly Zeus/Jupiter, by binding the Cyclops. Hercules / Ercole is sent out to find Ulysses and bring him back for justice. Birdmen capture Herc and give him a time, he gets free and continues his search. King Lagos enters the picture and allies Ulysses, although they were once enemies. Herc comes to the rescue and saves Ulysses and it ends with a prayer to Jupiter/Zeus.

Not the best peplum of the 1960s I've seen, but not the worst.

3/10

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.

Jupiter sends Heracles (yes thats right, its not Hercules) to get Ulysses and bring him to the cyclops for his little blinding trick. Its an odd film as what should be the adventures or two heroes are enemies for most of it. Somewhere along the lines they get captured by bird people and find their lady loves. The first 45 minutes constitute a pretty good, if cheaply made, adventure film. Unfortunately the second half spirals and then plummets into Mystery Science Theater 3000 territory as all sense is lost and technical errors, for example rock walls that ripple like cloth or hands appearing in empty holes, begin to over take any hope that the makers knew what they were doing. If you like off beat adventure films try the first half of this...I can't promise anything about the second.

ULYSSES AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES is not an easy Peplum to review. It does stand out from the endless batch of Italian action films starring beefy actors. ULYSSES AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES has a definitely different tone to it though, a more French feel to it than most Sword & Sandal films. There's a lot of action and there are monsters and weird creatures and such. You know, typical Peplum ingredients but the film is very wordy. It relies a lot on dialogue and word play between the characters, which is typically French. Also the actor who plays Ulysses, French actor Georges Marchal, is unmistakably French looking. These differences actually makes this one stand-out from the rest of the pack.

But even with these original aspects, is it great? Well, good but not great (maybe with a better DVD transfer, it would fall into the great category). It IS very entertaining, rarely boring and sorta admirable that these guys did try to do something different but the whole package is most definitely uneven.

The story is about Heracles(played by 6'8" tall Mike Lane) trying to bring Ulysses to justice, for some actions which took place before the film began. At one point, Heracles has Ulysses "handcuffed" to him and the two men go through their journey bound together, like in THE DEFIANT ONES.

There are some moments which are thrilling unto themselves but there are a lot cheesy ones too. The stand out "bizarre" scene here is a dance number (what's with Sword & Sandal films and kooky dance sequences?) where the two heroes, tied to a tree, are being terrorized by an army of effeminate looking men who are dressed up as birds and do these peculiar dance moves. Imagine those scary flying monkeys in THE WIZARD OF OZ grouped together and they start dancing like they're in a Buster Berkley number and they try to kill the beefy heroes by pecking and scratching them to death. The dance sequence is out of this world bizarre. One has to see it to believe it. It's so bizarre that I love it.

There are other stand-out scenes but nothing beats that one. As I already mentioned, some fighting scenes are pretty good. For instance, the one at the climax between Marchal and exploitation great Gabriele Tinti is remarkably effective. The one on the boats is also good (the special effects are obvious though). There's also a fairly suspenseful "walls coming down to crush the hero" bit. But even with all the action, the story relies more on dialogue than action. Some of the dialogue is pretty bad, certainly during love scenes. The two heroes trying to woe that beautiful but out-of-place playboy bunny Bird Woman; the romance scenes on a whole are embarrassing, including the one when Heracles and Ulysses talk about love. But other bits of dialogue are actually clever and even thought provoking (a Peplum that's thought provoking?). The battle of wits between Ulysses and King Laro is truly memorable and fun.

The production values are not the greatest. The makeup fx of the cavemen is pretty bad. There are only a few sets. The set for King Laro, with that huge face behind Laro's throne, is memorable. The continuity is filled with errors, but this might be due to US distributors editing the original version for US audiences. The direction sometimes creates suspense and tension, which is no mean feat considering we're talking about a Peplum here. The score is good. Another plus is Georges Marchal as Ulysses. I really like Marchal as an actor. He's one of the best actors to play a mythical hero and has a truly striking presence.

Like I said, not an easy film to review, ULYSSES AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES is different than the usual Sword & Sandal stuff and I appreciated it for its many original aspects. Personally speaking, even with all of its obvious faults, at a certain level, I find this much more satisfactory than the much heralded COLOSSUS OF RHODES. It's worth watching.

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.