Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon

"Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon" was picked up by American- International Pictures for a stateside release. However, A.I.P. decided to release the movie directly to television instead of giving it a theatrical release. When A.I.P. did that, it usually meant they didn't have confidence that the movie in question would do well in theaters, and they were probably right in this case. The movie is not awful by any means - it has some spectacle, from some good production values. And the movie moves from scene to scene fairly briskly. On the other hand, the Hercules in this particular movie doesn't always come off so well. In the first 30% or so of the movie, he only makes two brief appearances. And there is sometimes a goofy vibe to him, such as with the gigantic club he likes to carry around with him. Another problem is that while the movie moves from scene to scene briskly, it soon becomes apparent that there isn't a terrible amount of plot; there are instead a lot of characters equally trying to make their presence known. And a few more action sequences would have helped. If you really like sword and sandal movies, this movie is acceptable, but in no way is it likely to make converts to the genre.

Shalmaneser (Livio Lorenzon), Assur (Tullio Altamura) , and their sister Tanit (Helga Liné), tyrants of Babylon, have taken several Hellenic women prisoner, including Hesperia (Anna Maria Polani) , queen of Greece, and her betrothed, Phaleg, king of Assyria (Mario Petri). Hercules (Rock Stevens) intervenes to save the monarchs and punish the cruel tyrants. To do this, Hercules uses a huge club with which he defeats his enemies.

Peters Lupus, or Rock Stevens (from the 1960s TV series Mission: Impossible), was one of the many bodybuilders who followed in the footsteps of Steve Reeves and dedicated himself to the peplum genre in the 1960s. Here he plays the famous character from Greek mythology. As Hercules/Rock Stevens fights to free the people of Babylon from an evil sorceress and other villains. Of course, the best scenes are those in which Hercules, pushing a winch with chains, brings down the city of Babylon, although several of its photographs are taken from Robert Aldrich's film Sodom and Gomorrah.

It stars the stiff and expressionless Rock Stevens, whose real name was Peter Lupus.was one of the many actors and -not one of the best-who played this kind of bulky hero that was all the rage in the 1960s. Other actors of the same style worthy of consideration were the following: Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott, Richard Harrison, Dan Vadis, Reg Park, Sergio Ciani, Samson Burke, Brad Harris, and several others. However, none of them surpassed the great Steve Reeves in popularity and impact, followed by the also notable Gordon Scott, who also starred in some Tarzan films. On numerous occasions Peter Lupus was asked to play the legendary Greek hero, as well as the equally well-built demigods Samson and Ursus, even though the film titles often fused or confused them in their titles. Peter Lupus was born in 1932, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Challenge of the Gladiator (1965), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Goliath at the Conquest of Damascus (1965). At his beginnings he was hired by the US Army to appear in a series of commercials playing the role of Superman with the permission of "Detective Comics". He did so for many months until the Playgirl pictorial was published. He then subsequently was terminated and the Army for many years later did no longer produce recruitment commercials for broadcast television. With his height, bodybuilder physique and handsome good looks, he was a natural for the starring roles in the sword and sandal/mythological muscle man movies. He went to Europe and got the lead roles and top billing, under the name "Rock Stevens," in four such films in the final years (1964-1965) of that genre's popularity.

The film features the evocative score of Angelo Lavagnino, a prolific Italian composer responsible for the soundtracks of Orson Welles' films: Othello and Chimes at Midnight, among many others. The motion picture was middlingly directed by Domenico Paolella, as it has some gaps and failures . It includes various roles arrive and depart regularly with no regard to logic or the plot, many scenes are suddenly chopped short leaving wild flaws in logic and some principals change sides for seemingly no reason at all. Domenico Paolella was a musical filmmaker who, in the 1960s, became a director of films based on classical mythologies. Domenico was a craftman, an acceptable director and writer, known for filming all kind of genres such as Nunexploitation : ¨The nun and the devil¨, ¨Unholy Convent¨ , Peplum : ¨Maciste Nell'inferno Di Gengis Khan¨, ¨Il Gladiatore Che Sfidò L'Impero¨ , ¨Golia Conquista Di Bagdad¨ , ¨Ercole Contro Tiranni , ¨Maciste against Mongols¨, among others . Rating : 4.5/10 , very mediocre Peplum movie .

Okay sword & sandal epic. Lupus isn't really that bad; this film portrays the strong man as smarter than usual, which is a plus.

The hero of the film is really the Biblical Samson (the slaves are quite obviously Hebrew, the promised land obvious Isreal). God knows why they bothered to reference Hercules on release - maybe they were afraid of being accused of blasphemy for making a cheap B-movie about the Old Testament hero.

As noted by others, the best scenes in the film are actually borrowed from other films. But the action sequences filmed for this movie itself are pretty much par for the course, but nothing special.

Dull in spots, but not without its occasional flashes of Saturday matinée fun.

Peter Lupus who later was a regular on Mission Impossible takes his turn as Hercules in Hercules And The Tyrants Of Babylon. His mission in this peplum is to save the Queen of the Hellenes.

The two middle eastern empires of the time have raided and sacked Greece and one of them has carried off the Queen of the Hellenes. Problem is that Babylon doesn't know that they have her, but the Assyrian king sure does. When the Assyrian king visits the three sharing Babylonian monarchs and wishes to buy all their captive women slaves, they smell something up.

In the meantime Hercules is on his mission to save her from whomever. To aid Lupus in his quest, he's got himself one mighty club, the stick which looks like a big and thick tree branch can give a mighty whack when Hercules wields it.

As peplum pictures go, this one's a bit above the norm.

This movie takes place about 3000 years ago with a man named, "Salman Osar" (Livio Lorenzon), his brother "Azzur" (Tullio Altamura) and their sister, "Taneal" (Helga Line) jointly ruling the Babylonian Empire. Although the affairs of state are being effectively managed by mutual consent, the fact is that all three desire sole authority and each of them secretly scheme against the other two. This intrigue soon becomes even more heated when a Babylonian raiding party sent to obtain slaves unknowingly captures "Asparia" (Anna Maria Pollani), the Queen of the Hellenes. Soon both the Assyrian "King Phaleg" (Mario Petri) and "Hercules" (Peter Lupus) set out for Babylon to release her from Babylonian captivity. While King Phaleg seeks to force her to marry him in order to extend his empire, Hercules only wants to reunite her with her subjects. Now, as far as the overall movie is concerned, although I thought it started off pretty good it seemed to lose its sense of direction towards the end. In any case, Peter Lupus managed to portray Hercules reasonably well and both Helga Line and Anna Maria Pollani certainly added to the scenery. But other than that I really didn't see anything that remarkable about this movie. Accordingly, I rate this movie as just slightly below average.