Vulcan, fils de Jupiter

The Roman Gods take center stage in this one with an old fashioned Olympic triangle taking place at the home of the Gods. Venus, the God of beauty and love is making a play for Vulcan and she's got him panting hot and heavy after her. That upsets Mars and Jupiter banishes all three to earth to sort it all out.

Vulcan finds himself a nice earthly mortal who rivals Venus for her beauty, but he still doesn't like Mars. And Mars has got himself a Tower of Babel like scheme whereby he allies himself with some earthly despots to build a tower as tall as Olympus. Can Vulcan stop him in time from challenging Jupiter himself?

The Greeks and Romans did not believe in one all seeing and all pervasive spirit like Deity. They liked their immortals with all the, dare I say it, human frailties built in. The idea for the film is an interesting one, but the roles would require some classically trained actors, not people who are used to peplum spectacles.

This is now my fourth encounter with a movie involving Italian film-maker Emimmo Salvi – 2 of which proved positive but the remainder were not; consequently, I cannot say that I am looking forward to catch up with a fifth title...which is bound to be the Spaghetti Western, WANTED JOHNNY Texas (1967)! Anyway, the film under review is yet another peplum dealing with mythological Greek gods and must surely rank as one of the weirdest ever made – sometimes breaching a level of awfulness that almost equals the one displayed by Luigi Cozzi's more inventive HERCULES revamps of the 1980s!

Rod Flash (a pseudonym for Iloosh Khoshabe!) plays the titular blacksmith (the Roman god of fire) forging weapons for the likes of Achilles in the Olympian foundry who is improbably involved in a divine love triangle with the nymphomaniac Venus (played by Annie Gorassini being, quite evidently, the Roman goddess of love!; her initial tryst with Adonis is summarily ended by a lightning bolt thrown by an angered Jupiter!) and Mars (for being the Roman god of war and impersonated by future "Argoman" Roger Browne, he is pretty ineffectual in combat and has to seek the help of humans to reach his vengeful ambitions!). The ensuing struggle angers the king of gods, Jupiter (the Roman equivalent of the Greek almighty, Zeus) who sends them all to sort out their romantic issues on Earth! Lamely, despite all manner of wild-eyed characters and wild creatures, the conflict is finally resolved by Jupiter's anti-climactic vocal admonishment from the skies after all! For what it is worth, among the other inhabitants on Mount Olympus that put in an incidental appearance here are Pluto (incarnated by Salvi regular Gordon Mitchell and prone as ever to maniacal cackling!) and Mercury (played by character actor Isarco Ravaioli).

On the earthly side of the fence, Vulcan is abetted by Bella Cortez (playing his new love interest Aetna and the protagonist of a surprisingly sensual dance routine that for once justifies these normally terminally bland additions to the peplum stew), a pony-riding dwarf (ingenious or what?) and a sleepy-eyed Neptune and his Morlock-like minions! Hindering his progress, so to speak, are a Thracian warlord (who is somehow convinced by Mars to build a tower all the way up to Olympus with the intent of besieging it!) and his awfully silly-looking fanged lizard men!! This unheralded and (mostly unintentionally) enjoyable viewing came by way of a very battered, highly washed-out English-dubbed print available on a "You Tube" channel dedicated to this most maligned of film subgenres.

Cheap Italian 1960s sword & sandal "epic" about Greek God Jupiter tiring of his daughter Venus' wildchild promiscuous ways and decides it's time to marry her off. This leads to many potential suitors and much infighting among the gods. Badly dubbed, ridiculously cheap special effects, and generally poor production values make this a far cry from "Jason and the Argonauts" or "Clash of the Titans," but there is something endearing about these sorts of awful films and "Vulcan, Son of Giove" is a pretty respectable entry in the disreputable Italian muscle man sub genre (i.e. remember that SNL skit where Bill Murray played Hercules? "That boulder is too large. I could move a smaller one."). Although not a good film in the conventional sense, I was very much entertained.

This is one of those movies that is so bad it instantly becomes a classic fun film. This is a movie where so much happens you won't be bored, it just keeps moving onward throwing monsters, gods, and myths in every which way at such a rate that you have to keep watching because you simply can't believe whats been thrown into the stew. Watch the film, preferably on a rainy afternoon when its the perfect time for a movie.

Trouble develops in Olympus when "Venus, the Goddess of Love" (Annie Gorassini) is scolded by her father, "Jupiter, the God of Lightning" (Furio Meniconi) for her promiscuous ways. To remedy this continual problem, Jupiter announces his intention to marry her off to either "Mars, the God of War" (Roger Browne) or "Vulcan, the God of Fire and Blacksmithing" (Iloosh Khoshabe). Yet rather than wait a month or so for Jupiter's decision, Venus decides to take matters into her own hands and joins with Mars and "Pluto, the God of Darkness" (Gordon Mitchell) in an attempted revolt. And since both Mars and Vulcan have been cast to earth pending Jupiter's determination, that's where Mars begins his disloyal operation. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this was an okay "Sword & Sandal" film for the most part. Unfortunately, it suffered greatly from being rather incoherent and confusing at times due to a lack of sufficient character development. It's also quite possible that the fact that this movie was originally produced in Italian and dubbed into English may not have helped either. Likewise, a few of the costumes could have used some improvement as well. On the plus side, I thought that both Annie Gorassini and Bella Cortez (as the sea nymph, "Aetna") were rather striking which certainly didn't hurt matters. Even so, neither of them were able to overcome the disjointed script or plot and as a result I rate this movie as slightly below average.