The Trojans in Lazio - Steve Reeves as Aeneas
This historical adventure film by Giorgio Venturini, made in 1962, was based on motifs from Vergil's (also known as: Publius Vergilius Maro) Latin epic "Aeneid". The film, called "La leggenda di Enea" in Italian and "The Avenger" in English, is the sequel to "La battaglia di Troja" by Giorgio Ferroni, also starring Steve Reeves. The filming took place in what was then Yugoslavia.
After losing the war for their hometown of Troy, the remaining Trojans flee across the Mediterranean and, under the leadership of Aeneas (Steve Reeves), reach Latium, where they finally want to settle after a long wandering. The local King Latino (Mario Ferrari) is benevolent towards the Trojan refugees and would like to allow them to settle. The leaders of the other tribes are not really happy about this, so violent conflicts arise. Important opponents are Liana Orfei as the combative Camilla (like her cousin Moira Orfei ("Ursus in the Valley of the Lions"), she comes from an Italian family of artists and was seen several times in Italian films of the time, including alongside Lex Barker in "I pirati della costa"), Gianni Garko as the frighteningly cunning Turnus and Maurice Poli as his willing henchman. Euryalus (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) and the beautiful Lavinia (Carla Marlier) stand by Aeneas and his Trojans.
With the powerful fight scenes, in which not only Steve Reeves can shine as the title hero, and the relatively large number of characters with their different ways of acting for a peplum or sandal film, this film strives to achieve a certain level in order to do justice to the literary original become. This is also quite successful. However, it's all too easy to see the tricks in film, for example when Steve Reeves' double is used or individual fighters don't seem as motivated as they should be.
The end of the fighting shown in the film creates the basis for the later emergence of the city of Rome, which would then result in Roman world domination for almost a whole millennium. The Trojan Aeneas is considered a pioneer of later Rome, which is what Virgil's "Aeneid" is also about. The area around today's Rome is still called Lazio, which can be seen, for example, in the name of the well-known football club Lazio Roma.
With slight reservations, this film is not only worth seeing for fans of the peplum genre!
