‘With one hand, I could send a hundred arrows into his body, but such a simple death wouldn’t give me any pleasure.’
A high court official teams up with a barbarian queen to take the throne of Zimba, a walled city in the jungle sitting above the fabled gold mines of King Solomon. The murdered king’s young son escapes with a young woman from the court, seeking assistance from legendary strongman, Maciste…
Po-faced Peplum antics from writer-director Piero Regnoli, hiding his identity in the latter role under the somewhat less Italian-sounding name of Martin Andrews. On muscleman duty is genuine Englishman Reg Park, who had already starred on two occasions as Hercules.
Things ate trucking along quite nicely in the city of Zimba, thanks very much, with wise old King Zelea (Carlo Tamberlini) celebrating 20 years on the throne. Despite sitting on the fabulous wealth of King Solomon, mining is banned by royal command, with Tamberlini determined to shield his people from the corrupting influence of the precious metal. This doesn’t go down well with scheming advisor Riad (Elio Jotta, credited as Leonard G Elliot), and he plans to take the throne by aligning himself with the outlaw band of warrior queen Fazira (the beautiful Wandisa Guida).
Using a secret passage through the catacombs known only to Jotta, the bandits storm the palace, and Tamberlini meets his end at the sword point of his former friend. The coup is a success, and, in no time at all, the populace is working in the mines under the lash. But there’s one fly in the ointment; Tamblerlini’s young son Vazma (Loris Loddi) has escaped the carnage along with young nanny Samara (Eleanora Bianchi). During the fighting, they were smuggled out of the palace by heroic soldier Abucar (Bruno Piergentili or Dan Harrison, if you insist). His instructions are for her to find his old comrade in arms, Maciste (Park) and engage his help in putting things right.
By 1964, the Peplum phenomenon ignited by Steve Reeves’ starring turn as ‘Hercules/Le fatiche di Ercole’ (1958) was running on fumes only. Recruited from the days of silent cinema, heroic strongman Maciste had been front and centre of the craze, already appearing in 19 features in 5 years, beginning with ‘Maciste in the Valley of the Kings/Maciste nella valle dei Re/Son of Samson’ (1960). By now, the formula had become worn out, exhausted by the efforts of multiple producers hopping on a bandwagon driven by leading characters whose provenance lay firmly in the public domain, not that Italian filmmakers ever concerned themselves very much with trifling legal matters such as intellectual property rights or registered copyrights.
Unfortunately, Regnoli’s take on the material is nothing new and is almost comically serious, with the usual tropes and clichés trotted out in an entirely predictable fashion. The addition of ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ as the backdrop of the action proves to be for name recognition only, as there’s simply no trace of H Rider Haggard’s classic adventure novel of the same name, and setting the film in Africa exposes a lack of production budget. When Bianchi and Loddi flee the palace takeover, it’s like they’ve wandered into a 1930s jungle adventure film, complete with footage of elephants and giraffes. Rather than Johnny Weissmuller swinging into view, however, it’s Park, but he deals with a stuffed lion using the usual twin weapons of shaky camera work and extreme closeups.
Later on, when the trio reach the native village of Bombera, the native ceremonials look suspiciously as if their appearing courtesy of an old documentary film, the National Geographic vibe heightened by the sudden intervention of VoiceOver Man. His sole function here seems to be to assure a worried audience that these natives may look fierce, but, hey, they’re a bunch of pretty chill dudes, really. Other work on the version dubbed into English also has its moments, with Loddi sounding like a runaway kid from one of England’s poshest private schools. He also has a surprisingly feeble grasp of the realities of the situation. Sure, he’s only around seven years old and didn’t witness the fighting in the palace, but it’s still hard to believe he would treat the desperate flight through the jungle as a combination field trip and a grand day out.
Despite his previous two good showings as Hercules, Park is surprisingly wooden as Maciste. However, it’s fair to say Regnoli’s script gives him no real opportunity to display anything but his muscles. As was often the case in Peplum, the villains have better roles. Meet Riad; his hobbies are snarling, torture and devising elaborate execution methods which never work. Jotta gives good value as the wannabe tyrant, but his partner in crime overshadows his scenery-chewing antics. Guida imbues her fighting queen with such a fierce intensity that she doesn’t need to resort to such extravagant posturing. She even proves her warrior credentials at one point with some enthusiastic swordplay. Inevitably, she takes a fancy to Park and his muscles and suggests an alliance, putting Jotta on the back burner. Rather than play along and wait for a chance to turn the tables, Park is immediately outraged, of course, and promptly gets a new working opportunity in the mining industry, along with the rest of the populace. For once, there’s no mention of the new regime’s tax policies, but I guess they’re probably as fair and equitable as those imposed by a British Conservative Government.
Elsewhere, there’s a lengthy scene where Park proves his strength trapped in a cage of spikes with two teams of horses trying to tear him in two. He also gets to demolish the giant statue in the temple, which appears a lot less impressive as it breaks apart, the large blocks looking suspiciously lightweight as they scatter. He also suffers the effects of a hypnotic drug administered via the tried and trusted combination of a poisoned garland of flowers and a magical ankle bracelet. Unfortunately, the lack of budget makes for a climax where the villains meet their end off-camera and by accident. The final battle is over with almost the single wave of a sword.
Regnoli debuted as a writer in the Italian film industry in 1951, and it remained his principal occupation for over 40 years. Early on, he collaborated with directors Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava on the story of ‘I vampiri/Lust of the Vampire’ (1957), Italy’s first post-war horror film. Despite its box office failure, he returned to the well for ‘The Playgirls and the Vampire/L’ultima preda del vampiro’ (1960), his fourth outing as a director. After his excursion into Peplum, the subject of his writing credits followed a familiar pattern. There was Giallo with ‘The Third Eye/Il terzo occhio’ (1966), Eurospy with ‘Matchless’ (1967) and some Spaghetti Westerns, including ‘Navajo Joe’ (1966) starring a young Burt Reynolds. He was incredibly prolific, with over 100 scriptwriting credits, and later projects included post-nuke actioner ‘Urban Warriors’ (1987) and horrors ‘Demonia’ (1990) and ‘Voices from Beyond/Voci dal profondo’ (1994) for director Lucio Fulci.
Guida was a former beauty queen whose first significant screen role was that of the heroine in ‘I vampiri/Lust of the Vampire’ (1957). From there, she quickly carved out a career as a second lead, occasionally headlining in projects such as the comedy romance ‘An Italian in Greece/Mia Italida stin Ellada’ (1958). She entered the Peplum arena with ‘Goliath and the Dragon/Le Vendetta di Ercole (1960) and soon became a familiar face, playing Princesses and slave girls and, on occasion, one pretending to be the other. Appropriately, she married Luciano Martino, who wrote many of these films, and semi-retired in the mid-1960s to raise their children. Martino is far better known as the brother of director Sergio and worked as a producer on many of his films, including celebrated Giallo classics ‘The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh/Lo strano vizio della signora Wardh’ (1971) and ‘All the Colors of the Dark/Tutti i colori del buio (1972).
There are some enjoyable aspects for fans of Peplum, but less committed viewers will probably be significantly underwhelmed.