Submitted to the British Board of Film Censors on 17 August 1964 and passed with a "U" certificate. Premiered at the Anglo Preview Theatre, 93 Wardour Street, London on 23 November 1964 (a 10:30 am showing for press and trade only). Opened at the Coliseum, Harlesden on 12 April 1965 (for one week) before moving to the Essoldo, Paddington on 22 April 1965 (for three days). Joint distributors Warner-Pathé/Anglo Amalgamated did not grant the film a general release, but it went to a fair number of cinemas as an optional booking. The film had a humble afterlife as a children's matinee attraction right into the late 1970s.
As with their other Italian epics, American International gave the music score something of a Les Baxter make-over. The main title reprises the fast movement of The Sacred Crown sequence from Goliath and the Barbarians (1959) whilst the opening scene (originally unscored) now has the slow orchestral version of the Goliath main theme. Thereafter, a fair amount of the original Angelo Francesco Lavagnino score is retained, including the lively tavern dances. AIP also preserve Lavagnino's splendid main title by transferring it to the end of the film to form a new end title.
As with "Sign of the Gladiator" (which didn't contain any gladiators), AIP again devise a title that has nothing to do with the story. In "Samson and the Slave Queen" is the lady of the title an enslaved queen, or just a queen that owns a lot of slaves? The narrator of the trailer explains that the story is about "Samson's efforts to find his missing queen held captive as a dancing slave." At the same time we see a girl doing her dance number at the tavern, but this is her only scene. At no point in the film does she turn out to be a queen, enslaved or otherwise.
Italian censorship visa # 41021 delivered on 20-8-1963.
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