I had bemoaned the fact that I missed out on an Italian-TV broadcast of this one not too long ago in my review of QUEEN OF BABYLON (1954) when it was available (albeit English-dubbed and panned-and-scanned) on "You Tube" all the time! However, I need not have worried as the film itself proved a disappointment and, in any case, neither of the two leads (French Yvonne Furneaux and American John Ericson) were Italian!
The plot deals with the erection of the famed Biblical city of Babylon, which turns out to have been a whim on the part of the ambitious evil Queen Semiramis of Assyria (getting her just desserts at the end when unceremoniously receiving an arrow in her bosom)! Typically, she is desired by many but herself sets her eyes on – and unrealistically obsesses over – the enslaved Dardanian King (there is even a scene, ripping off THE TEN COMMANDMENTS {1956}, in which she visits him at his 'labor-camp').
While Furneaux is ideal for the role (she had briefly treaded similar territory in THE MUMMY [1959}), Ericson is badly miscast and almost single-handedly drowns the film with his boyish features and conspicuously modern approach to acting i.e. drawling delivery! That said, the rest does not offer much in the way of compensation: indeed, I burst out in laughter during the very first scene when an authority figure's talking with another fellow is interrupted by the arrival of a stranger and, when notified of the latter's business, asks his companion to lead the way but addressing the man by the thoroughly formal (and downright condescending) "You, there!" as if he never had anything to do with him!!
