Hannibal

I don't know who the hell shot this, but I suppose I could glance at the credits and lay blame on the culprits, but since I'm lazy and irritated right now I'll just skip the formality and say that Victor Mature probably fired his agent several times over after being booked for this gig.

He is quite literally the only competent person thesping his role, all the while other actors are stiff, comical, and otherwise just plain unconvincing. But like I implied in my first paragraph, it's not even the acting (however bad by the supporting cast) that's the issue: It's the cinematography: It's the direction and shot set ups: It's poor scheduling of the extras so the most can be gotten out of them shot wise. It's everything from the awful costumes to the lack of historical accuracy, to the extreme lack of consistent production values.

The battle scenes are so poorly staged that you wonder who the hell was in charge of this thing. The acting, as mentioned, by all other than the lead (Mature) is some of the worst I've seen for a feature film. It's that bad.

Avoid this thing.

This is one of several epic Italian productions 'supervised' by Hollywood directors - others of its ilk include THE GIANT OF MARATHON (Jacques Tourneur, 1959), Joseph AND HIS BRETHREN (Irving Rapper, 1960), THE MONGOLS (Andre' De Toth, 1961), THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (Arthur Lubin, 1961), THE WONDERS OF ALADDIN (Henry Levin, 1961) and SODOM AND GOMORRAH (Robert Aldrich, 1962); Ulmer himself served again in the same capacity on L' ATLANTIDE (1961).

As was generally the case, in spite of the participation of such noted film-makers, these spectacles displayed little directorial flair; in fact, this particular example is only distinguished from similar sword-and-sandal efforts by its above-average cast - though, to be fair, Ulmer stated in the accompanying interview on the VCI DVD that he didn't have final say on the film and, consequently, his vision was compromised by financiers who found his approach "too philosophical"! In any case, while the "elephant walk" (Hannibal famously crossed the Alps on pachyderms) and battle sequences are well enough staged, the look of the film is rather shoddy and bears evidence of budgetary restrictions. By the way, the Italian side of the directorial chores were handled by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia - a veteran of costume pictures who would soon replace Vittorio Cottafavi on AMAZONS OF ROME (1961), after the latter fell out with leading man Louis Jourdan!

Victor Mature, himself a regular of this type of film, is ideally cast as the legendary Carthaginian warrior - though his performance is merely adequate, the script having made his character distinctly one-dimensional (where he's involved in an unconvincing and dreary romance with Rita Gam, a woman from the enemy ranks); Gabriele Ferzetti lends dignity to the proceedings as a Roman senator. A surprising presence here is that of Spaghetti Western/action-comedy icon Terence Hill (billed under his real name of Mario Girotti) - playing the key role of Ferzetti's son; according to the IMDb, his subsequent frequent on-screen partner Bud Spencer also appears in the film...but I didn't spot him!

The supplements on the VCI disc include a precious 33-minute audio interview with Ulmer (conducted by Peter Bogdanovich), which imparts several interesting bits on the production of F.W. Murnau's THE LAST LAUGH (1924) - on which Ulmer served as art director - and HANNIBAL itself; also, besides having the director enthusiastically discuss John Schlesinger's MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969), it reveals his dislike of fellow expatriates Otto Preminger and William Dieterle!

I like Victor MATURE and would even go as far as to call myself a "fan" of this Arnold Schwarzenegger-predecessor/archetype (with Austrian roots actually), but even I have to admit, that this flick ain't any of his better ones, unfortunately (sigh).

It's awkward from beginning to end: The first scene takes place in the Roman Senate, then you have a long one with the elephants crossing the Alps (that's probably the best of the whole picture, actually you can now turn off your TV-set) and now we're already well over 5 minutes into the picture, still no Hannibal/Annibale. Suddenly one sees some elephants getting loose and a guy which we can identify on second look as Victor Mature does some awkward gestures to get the elephants away. Pretty strange entry for "the hero". Only in scene number 4 and well 10 minutes into the movie someone takes the chance to identify our hero and calls him with his name. OK, the introduction of "the hero" has been managed, somehow.

The ending is equally abrupt, we see Hannibal's army moving along and get a voice over. Obvioulsly the directors (Edgar G. Ulmer usually does it better, but I assume he didn't have much to say in this one) had decided that enough celluloid had been "wasted" and called it a day.

The dialog is so unsophisticated, it hurts, but still not unintentionally funny, only hammy and boring, witless.

Everything in this picture is unfortunately mediocre to sub-par: ahead and foremost the script, but also acting (Victor is certainly also already too old for the role, sorry), photography, whatever. Only the music by Carlo RUSTICHELLI is slightly better, of course he's no Miklos ROSZA either, but at least the music is fitting and powerful. But that does not justify sitting through the whole picture (enjoy the main theme and quit).

For Terence HILL Fans it is worth mentioning that Mario GIROTTI, later known as TH, has a medium large part here and you can watch him "acting" (woodenly, but so what) a Roman.

So my rating is: If you are a Victor Mature fan: 4 out of 10, if you are a Terence Hill fan: 3 out of 10, if you're neither nor: 2 out of 10, so better stay away.

I wish I could have written a better review. :-(

This material is difficult to see, the photography and color are not the best, and from time to time you see cut scenes. Poor Annibale that Hollywood never wanted to make a film about a real revolutionary and hero. This Italian film tries to give an idea of what Annibale did, but it might have a lot of invention. For example, I am not sure about his love for a woman called Sylvia, who was the nephew of Fabius. Annibale (Victor Mature) was famous because of using elephants in his battles. The animals are seen at the beginning of the film when Annibale and the troops were coming to Italy through very snowy roads in France, but at the time of the battles the elephants were not seen anymore. The force of antique Rome is once again shown here, the Romans were defeated at the beginning by the Annibale's troops, but once they got united in the Senate and all power was given to Fabius, Annibale started to loose.

This film is perhaps one of the first one of the then young Terence Hill. In addition, Victor Mature showed once again that he was probably the best actor in epic films. In my personal opinion, he was much better than Charlton Heston. The film can be seen, but one may need to read the history to know what was real or not.

Although touted as a Grade-B epic, such a high rating is dubious. The acting is overwrought and the plot and narrative devices are poor. The most distinguishing characteristic of this film is the cinematography -- which is simply horrendous. Over and over, there are shots of the Carthaginian Army marching somewhere -- the problem is that the march order is more akin to a company of skirmishers than it is to an army of thousands on the march. Scenes are often so dark as to be indistinguishable, and battles look like company exercises.

The Roman defeat at Cannae was the worst loss suffered by any Western army in a single day in history. Historically, the four/eight legions(opinions vary to whether double legions were present) were surrounded and destroyed in place, often because the Romans were so compressed in space that they could not effectively engage. Yet, the movie battle shows a rather open battle with large areas of maneuverability.

Much is made of Hannibal's elephants, but one must understand that only eighteen of the beasts survived the crossing of the Alps. In effect, they were the Panzers of the ancient world -- and much more effective as a terror weapon threat than an actual force multiplier.

The sub-plot of a love interest is pure Hollywood Italia -- no basis in reality. And although Fabius Cunctator was a historical figure whose "Fabian tactics" were proved correct, the movie concludes before any mention of Scipio Africanus who eventually defeated Hannibal at Zama.