The Slave

After the international success of HERCULES, the Steve Reeves Swords-and-Sandals vehicle THE SLAVE clearly had some money spent on its production values -- good costumes and some nice sets to accent good camera lighting abound. The plot, typical of peplum movies, is a mishmosh of themes intended to take advantage of recent hits.

Reeves is a Roman centurion working for the noble Julius Caesar in Rome. He is captured by leopard-skin wearing desert barbarians working for the evil Crassus, escapes, gets captured again, is enslaved, identified as Spartacus' son (hence the movie's Italian title) and leads a slave rebellion.

Director Sergio Corbucci does his usual highly competent job, abetted by the handsome production values that Cinecitta was capable of; kudos especially to director of Photography Enzo Baroni, whose lighting suggests illustrations on parchment. Although the writing never rises above the level of silliness that such cheap epics aspired to, fans of the genre will find plenty to enjoy.

One of the better Sword and Sandal movies from the golden era of the genre (the 1960's). Awesome to see Steve Reeves in his prime. If this movie had been made in the 1980's, no doubt Schwarzenegger would have been the lead. Beautifully shot on location in Egypt, the setting really does seem to improve the movie. Lot's of action, plenty of sword fights and cool set pieces. I think what stood out to me the most about this movie was the similarities to the "Zorro" story. Reeve's character is a bit like a super hero, darting off out of view to change in to a costume (son of Spartacus) that hides his true identity. Zorro would leave his mark, a "Z" carved with his sword. Son of Spartacus leaves an "S" carved or painted in to shields and walls to terrorize the abusive governor. It really did strike me as "Zorro" set in Roman times and happening in Egypt. Check out the size of the mole on the neck of the guy that played Caesar. Holy crap, he should have had that thing surgically removed. It was like a vestigial twin living on his shoulder/neck. Grotesque!

Overall, a good sword and sandal movie that I would have loved when I was 8 - 12 years old. Somehow I only just saw this movie for the first time now that I am 45 years old, but I still enjoyed it.

This is one of Steve Reeve's best ever films and possibly the last one in which he was in a tribune or Roman centurion costume...... Italian director Sergio Corbucci conconted up an idea to continue the life of Spartacus with Reeves as his son gaining a large measure of revenge on corrupt Roman counsel Ceasar Crassus who is running an illegal corrupt empire right in the heart of roman territory....In fact Crassus is getting so powerful that Ceaser himself sends Reeves to investigate what Crassus's methods are and report back to Caeser. Along the way on his trip to see Crassus the ship that Reeves is in hits a river barge and dumps him and a lovely Italian slave named Saida into the river. Reeves survives and he and Saida walk through the roman desert unaware that slave drivers are rounding up all the slaves they can to be bought and sold. Reeves and his gal are captured and Reeves breaks loose from the pack and wreaks his revenge on slave leaders with some dazzling sword work, wiping out a flock of slave drivers. One of the members of the slave band recognize a medallion worn by Reeves as the symbol of Spartacus, since the slave member was a member of Spartacus's force twenty years earlier. Reeves initially is unconvinced that he is truly the son of Spartacus and muses in a catacomb about his true identity. He sees the sword handle of Spartacus and it is the same talisman as his medallion. Reeves recognizes his true heritage and goes to work on wiping out Crassus and his evil empire......raid by raid Reeves and his band wipe out Crassus's gang all the while maintaining his identity as a roman centurion from Caesar.....in the end Reeves is caught and given a death sentence by Crassus....his followers then free him and Caesar must make a decision as to whether or not Reeves followed his orders as a true centurion. Caesar gives Reeves a death sentence but Reeves followers come to his rescue and Caesar relents. Good love story and the beautiful Ombretta Colli is Reeves's love interest. After this film Reeves became "Sandokan" and made one western in 1966 before retiring for good. I just love this film and Reeves had that marvelous physique that made any man drool!!!!! The immortal Steve Reeves, what a face and a body......

This film, made at the twilight of Mr. Reeves film career, is certainly one of his best. The location work in Egypt and a rather big budget look add a great amount of, shall I say it?, realism to an essentially escapist, fantastical genre- the Italian sword and sandal flicks of the 1958-64 period. This picture also features some extremely diabolical villainy on the part of Crassus. Sir Laurence Olivier wasn't nearly this outrageously evil playing the same character in SPARTACUS! Steve's dilemma is pretty heavy in this one, doing a complete 180 from up and coming Roman centurions to advocate warrior of the freedom movement for the slaves of Rome. The action scenes stand up pretty well after 40 plus years.

That "Il figlio di Spartacus" is one of the better sword'n'sandal flicks of the main period (1958-64) is basically due to two aspects: a fluent storyline and original sets in Egypt.

Writers Adriano Bolzoni, Bruno Corbucci and Giovanni Grimaldi (plus perhaps director Sergio Corbucci) have scripted a plot that continues the story of Spartacus where Stanley Kubrick left off in 1960 in his Hollywood production with Kirk Douglas. While Kubrick certainly stuck to the historical facts, the follow-up is complete fiction. Tough daredevil Douglas is replaced by smart bodybuilder Steve Reeves as his son, although this was not the worst choice. Reeves, the original Hercules performer of 1958, does quite well in the rôle of Randus, a Roman centurio (this seems to be considered as the highest military rank in "peplums"!), who is confronted with the fact that he seems to be the son of the legendary slave leader, Spartacus, who had once been smashed and crucified by the Roman consul, Crassus. Reeves' good looks distinguish him from Douglas very remarkably, but there's his Germanic combatant Verus (Franco Balducci), who is styled like Douglas two years ealier.

They needed to change history to a considerable extent (the story takes place in 48 B.C. when the real Crassus was already dead for five years) so that the fictive Randus could be 23 (Reeves was 36 by then) and Caesar could be involved. Note that the Sphinx has already lost its nose (which it did only 1850 years later) while serving as a likeable background to a talk between Caesar (Ivo Garrani), his adjutant Verulus (Renato Baldini, who has almost nothing to say), and Randus. Choosing the Egyptian landscape, including desert, oases and the pyramids of Gizeh, for the outdoor scenes adds greatly to the picture's atmosphere.

Corbucci manages to handle the camera positions and angles very well, almost experimentally for a production like this. Director of photography was Enzo Barboni, the later standard director of the Terence Hill/Bud Spencer movies. There is a foreshadowing of the spaghetti westerns not only in the techniques, but also with a surprisingly high level of brutality as depicted by Corbucci.

The story's main idea has Randus in the dilemma of being a Roman officer on the one hand and having the experience of being enslaved on the other. Only in this situation, he feels into the slaves' minds and puts himself at the head of the revolt against Crassus. The rest is a bit stealing from the "Zorro" idea, including the "S" (for Spartacus) mark. As Western European ideology would have it (we're at the climax of American-Russian confrontation) before a revolutionary attitude became fashionable in Italo westerns, Randus fights for freedom (from slavery), not for redistribution of capital.

Gianna Maria Canale, leading actress of many a peplum since the earlier days (playing the title rôle in "Teodora", among others), is fine as Crassus' love interest. But Claudio Gora can give all he can as the terrible Crassus, right down to an exaggerated paranoid Nero-like figure.

It's worth while, anyway.