les invincibles frères maciste

Yes, ahem. It has been some 36 years since I watched this monstrosity on afternoon Chicago television, but it left an indelible imprint on my psyche. It seems like one of the Maciste (Mah Chee Stay) brothers was Hercules and the other: I don't remember. They ride about Italy on horses, wearing loin cloths and getting into wrestling matches.

At one badly-dubbed point, Maciste puts his hand on his brother's should and says "Look! A tiny island." The delivery of this line was so funny I laughed till I almost got sick Not recommended for the faint of heart.

You must see this at some point. The brothers are nicely coiffed, with highly groomed beards, if I remember correctly.

This film seems to be the point at which the muscle man films went from serious attempt at spectacle in scale to we don't care. Think Hercules done as an episode of the original Star Trek. It has paved roads, Max Factor eye make-up, cheap production values, Las Vegas show music and a run of the mill plot. Its good, but nothing to write home about, except as the change in the look and feel of the muscle film.

Despite the title, which might lead you to think this is a peplum squarely in the heroic gladiator/demigod vein, its closest kin among the peplums I've seen is that masterpiece of weird sci-fi, GIANT OF THE METROPOLIS. The setting is only nominally the ancient world; we're really in a complete fantasy land where a hidden world lurks behind a giant waterfall, ruled by a depraved queen who practices mind-control and must force her slave population to continually turn a waterwheel lest their world come to an end. (The fact that there is always a hapless slave chained to the waterwheel, being repeatedly dunked, seems to be a bit of gratuitous sadism; Bush and Cheney's much-favored waterboarding inevitably comes to mind.) There's also a score that veers between light jazz and weird ambient music that sounds like broken plumbing (gurgling, clanging pipes).

Unfortunately, this film is nowhere in a class with GIANT OF METROPOLIS. Sets, cinematography and music are all inferior. It's weird, just not nearly weird enough. But the fact that this film offers one of the very rare chances to see star Iloosh Khoshabe (the muscleman of many names) elevates it a star or two. (Mario Novelli as the chunkier younger Maciste is pleasant but completely forgettable.)