It's an Italian film and very stylish as such, with beautiful ladies, a terrific cinematography (from Yugoslavia), perfect settings and even some entertainment on the way with some marvellous oriental ballet - all that's missing is Chatchaturian's Sabre Dance. The story is of considerable interest, being one of Leo Tolstoy's last works, a novel published after his death, looking back on his early days as a soldier in the Caucasus fighting Chechens and others.
The main character here is a Chechen leader in the 1850s in partly a true story, although very much romanticised, naturally, on film. Steve Reeves is dashing enough but as dumb and wooden as ever, he was no actor, he could only fight and show his muscles and sound his booming voice, actally somewhat in the line of Howard Keel, but Steve Reeves never sings, and the less he speaks, the better - the scripts of his films are never eloquent. But what does it matter if the actors cannot act, if the villains are superficially exaggerated, if the ladies are unrealistically beautiful, and if the intrigue sometimes gets a little messed up by effects - if the story is good, which it is here indeed. Tolstoy was the greatest realist in Russian literature, and his realism was perhaps the most consistent and merciless of all. He flinched at describing nothing. The story is therefore of immense psychological and historical interest, and even the Tsar makes an interesting character. I didn't expect much of this film since Steve Reeves was in it, I saw it for the sake of Tolstoy, but it proved a very positive surprise. War and peace in Caucasus - Italian style, and the style makes this film indeed a gem.
