Hercules and the Princess of Troy

In 1965 the boom in Italian sandal films was gradually coming to an end. As a result, a pilot film for a series was filmed for American television, but it was not realized. For almost 50 minutes you can watch Hercules (Gordon Scott) save a Trojan princess (Diana Hyland) from being sacrificed to a strange sea monster that looks terribly artificial. The only things worth mentioning are Gordon Mitchell as the pirate captain and Giorgio Ardisson (who would soon start off as the "Italian James Bond") as Leander.

The voice-overs, which comment on the events like a storybook, are particularly annoying. You can clearly see that this was not produced for the cinema, but for television.

Rightly forgotten!

It's silly to complain that this is a B-movie made for television - because that's exactly what it is, and doesn't pretend to be anything else. And here's the good news - it's a pretty darn good B-movie made for television. One of the major problems with standard Italian Hercules films is that the are usually 100- 120 minutes long, too long for the amount of story they have to tell; consequently there's a lot of padding to them, usually in the middle. This film is kept lean and tight at 47 minutes - only the highlights of the story are here, and that's all we need.

I must remark that production values are gorgeous for mid-60s television. The acting is professional, the pacing is snappy, the story interesting (for this genre), the special fx are on a par with better television sci-fi/fantasy shows of the period - this is solid B-movie entertainment. Worth checking out.

"Hercules and the Princess of Troy" was actually shot as a pilot for a proposed television series. This pilot wasn't picked up, probably because the sword and sandal genre was on its last legs both in Europe and in North America. It does have some interesting aspects, the main one being that for an 1965 American television production, it looks extremely lavish. Obviously, the makers of this pilot were able to recycle the sets, props, and costumes from past Italian sword and sandal movies. That's why this pilot feels exactly like one of those Italian sword and sandal movies, only shorter. The faster pace does indeed help, but for the most part this is no different than those Italian feature film productions. If you like the sword and sandal genre, you'll probably enjoy this. If you are not particularly crazy about the genre (like myself), you'll swallow it, but still be glad it's only half the usual length of the usual genre standard.

Gordon Scott is Hercules! There are two kinds of monsters: political and sea monsters and it is up to our muscle man hero Hercules to fight both.

This one is fine. Not a good film but fun to watch Hercules battle another large monster on the screen. Average story - no more, no less than most of the other Hercules films. Quirky dialogue and the large sea monster are really the highlights of the show.

Yet another film to simply kill another Saturday or Sunday afternoon with or a fine late night movie to fall asleep to. Nothing grand but does hold some entertainment value to those that like the old sword and sandal films and giant monsters.

3/10

Not a great movie, this was (as has been pointed out) a pilot for an unsold television series (produced by Joseph E. Levine, who distributed the original Steve Reeves HERCULES) based on the adventures of Hercules. I remembering looking forward to this after seeing a magazine article featuring Carlo Rambaldi's sea monster. In truth, the monster is the only thing worth watching in the show. It's well crafted but badly used. In a few shots it looks very convincing, in others like a big mechanical puppet pointlessly waving its claws around. Still worth checking out for pre-CGI monster fans and Gordon Scott makes a solid Hercules as usual.