Vulcan, Son of Jupiter

This is now my fourth encounter with a movie involving Italian film-maker Emimmo Salvi – 2 of which proved positive but the remainder were not; consequently, I cannot say that I am looking forward to catch up with a fifth title...which is bound to be the Spaghetti Western, WANTED JOHNNY Texas (1967)! Anyway, the film under review is yet another peplum dealing with mythological Greek gods and must surely rank as one of the weirdest ever made – sometimes breaching a level of awfulness that almost equals the one displayed by Luigi Cozzi's more inventive HERCULES revamps of the 1980s!

Rod Flash (a pseudonym for Iloosh Khoshabe!) plays the titular blacksmith (the Roman god of fire) forging weapons for the likes of Achilles in the Olympian foundry who is improbably involved in a divine love triangle with the nymphomaniac Venus (played by Annie Gorassini being, quite evidently, the Roman goddess of love!; her initial tryst with Adonis is summarily ended by a lightning bolt thrown by an angered Jupiter!) and Mars (for being the Roman god of war and impersonated by future "Argoman" Roger Browne, he is pretty ineffectual in combat and has to seek the help of humans to reach his vengeful ambitions!). The ensuing struggle angers the king of gods, Jupiter (the Roman equivalent of the Greek almighty, Zeus) who sends them all to sort out their romantic issues on Earth! Lamely, despite all manner of wild-eyed characters and wild creatures, the conflict is finally resolved by Jupiter's anti-climactic vocal admonishment from the skies after all! For what it is worth, among the other inhabitants on Mount Olympus that put in an incidental appearance here are Pluto (incarnated by Salvi regular Gordon Mitchell and prone as ever to maniacal cackling!) and Mercury (played by character actor Isarco Ravaioli).

On the earthly side of the fence, Vulcan is abetted by Bella Cortez (playing his new love interest Aetna and the protagonist of a surprisingly sensual dance routine that for once justifies these normally terminally bland additions to the peplum stew), a pony-riding dwarf (ingenious or what?) and a sleepy-eyed Neptune and his Morlock-like minions! Hindering his progress, so to speak, are a Thracian warlord (who is somehow convinced by Mars to build a tower all the way up to Olympus with the intent of besieging it!) and his awfully silly-looking fanged lizard men!! This unheralded and (mostly unintentionally) enjoyable viewing came by way of a very battered, highly washed-out English-dubbed print available on a "You Tube" channel dedicated to this most maligned of film subgenres.

This movie was mostly unavailable until the 1980s when it was released on video during the "put everything onto video" craze. It was made in 1962 during the Peplum era and then sort of disappeared. It has an OK story but is only 1 h 16 mins long which didn't fit the mould for TV or theaters. However, it has musclemen, great female stars , lizard men and lots of action. There are many good copies on Y/T, so watch and enjoy. Roger Browne told me this should have been distributed better. Larry Anderson.

This medium-scale peplum has a problem: Venus. And the problem with Venus is that she's a no-good tramp, whom no man or god can resist because she's so beautiful. (It's actually kind of hard to tell just how beautiful the actress is; one suspects she really would look rather ordinary if you scraped away the ton of makeup.) Apparently even the gods can only take so much scandalous behavior, so in order to "tame" Venus, it is decided to marry her off. Yeah, that'll work. The main candidates are Vulcan and Mars; Mercury, played rather conspicuously as gay, is obviously not in the running. When the squabbling between these rivals (not helped by the meddling of Gordon Mitchell's scheming Pluto) gets to be too much, Jupiter banishes the lot of them to Earth, where they must contend with mortals, Lizard Men, armies, barbarians, and so forth.

This isn't exactly a "good" movie, but it's a fun peplum, in large part because much of it takes place in the realms of the gods, where modest but nice sets, garish colored lighting, and lots of dry ice make a stylish impression a la (if hardly in the same league as) Bava's "Hercules in the Haunted World." Some will argue there's not enough "action," but things move fast enough. And frankly I think the dullest thing about these movies is that they often spend so much time having extras march around and have unconvincing sword fights in interchangeable desert-type settings. So this movie's emphasis instead on fantasy and intrigue is an improvement, in my book.

As Vulcan, Iloosh Khoshabe (who had a career in Iranian films before and after his run of Italian muscleman roles) has a fine physique, but he's a pretty colorless actor. Perhaps to make up for that lack, most of the other actors ham mercilessly, abetted (in the dubbed print I saw) by some comically stilted English dialogue. As Mars, Roger Browne also spends the whole movie shirtless to good effect. Annie Gorassini's Venus pouts and poses (albeit with a very 1960s hairdo) in an entertainingly campy fashion. As the "nice girl" Vulcan ultimately prefers, buxom Bella Cortez nonetheless performs a "dance" where she just kinda struts around in a bikini, at one point simply lying down in front of our hero and writhing.

Well, nobody watches a movie like this for the choreography...or the acting. Given the leads' natural attributes and minimal clothing (plus the whole plot being motivated by Venus' allure and insatiable appetites), this is a slightly sexier peplum than most.

I wonder if this movie was shot back-to-back with "The Seven Tasks of Ali Baba," because it involves the same director and much of the same cast. In any case, I saw there were several versions of "Vulcan" on YouTube, and watched the one that had the best-quality print in terms of definition and color (though it wasn't the most complete re: running time). That was a good decision, because this movie's silly charms are almost entirely visual. I wavered between giving this a 5 and a 6, but if it had been seen in a washed-out, 3rd-generation TV print, it probably wouldn't have earned more than a 4.

Cheap Italian 1960s sword & sandal "epic" about Greek God Jupiter tiring of his daughter Venus' wildchild promiscuous ways and decides it's time to marry her off. This leads to many potential suitors and much infighting among the gods. Badly dubbed, ridiculously cheap special effects, and generally poor production values make this a far cry from "Jason and the Argonauts" or "Clash of the Titans," but there is something endearing about these sorts of awful films and "Vulcan, Son of Giove" is a pretty respectable entry in the disreputable Italian muscle man sub genre (i.e. remember that SNL skit where Bill Murray played Hercules? "That boulder is too large. I could move a smaller one."). Although not a good film in the conventional sense, I was very much entertained.

Trouble develops in Olympus when "Venus, the Goddess of Love" (Annie Gorassini) is scolded by her father, "Jupiter, the God of Lightning" (Furio Meniconi) for her promiscuous ways. To remedy this continual problem, Jupiter announces his intention to marry her off to either "Mars, the God of War" (Roger Browne) or "Vulcan, the God of Fire and Blacksmithing" (Iloosh Khoshabe). Yet rather than wait a month or so for Jupiter's decision, Venus decides to take matters into her own hands and joins with Mars and "Pluto, the God of Darkness" (Gordon Mitchell) in an attempted revolt. And since both Mars and Vulcan have been cast to earth pending Jupiter's determination, that's where Mars begins his disloyal operation. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this was an okay "Sword & Sandal" film for the most part. Unfortunately, it suffered greatly from being rather incoherent and confusing at times due to a lack of sufficient character development. It's also quite possible that the fact that this movie was originally produced in Italian and dubbed into English may not have helped either. Likewise, a few of the costumes could have used some improvement as well. On the plus side, I thought that both Annie Gorassini and Bella Cortez (as the sea nymph, "Aetna") were rather striking which certainly didn't hurt matters. Even so, neither of them were able to overcome the disjointed script or plot and as a result I rate this movie as slightly below average.