I hadn’t watched any Hercules-and-Hercules-adjacent films since mid November of last year and got the itch to resume my Saturday morning ritual. Having mined the streaming Internet for most (or all?) of the available films, and having hit the bottom of the quality-barrel, I broke down and purchased Mill Creek Entertainment‘s 13-disc set of 50 Italian peplum films (4 per disc, 2 on each side, full list at IMDB). Some of the eight I’d already watched are included, but I suspect it will still be worth the $20 ($2.50 per film!) price tag.
First up was The Conqueror of the Orient which, of course, is available several places streaming, including on Amazon ($2 to rent, $7 to buy?!).
[ IMDB | Streaming (Amazon, 1:14) | Streaming (Dailymotion, 1:13:38) | Streaming (YouTube I, 1:16:49) | Streaming (YouTube II, 1:14:14) |Wikipedia ]
Original duration: 1:42:00, aspect ratio: 2.35 : 1
The copy that came with the boxed set is 1:14:08, so likely the same as the Amazon and YouTube II streams. My copy, and all streams, are copped, but there is a DVD for sale at The Film Collectors Society of America for $12.00 which (if the still can be trusted) appears to be much closer to the original aspect ratio at 1.76 : 1, is the length of the original release, and has much better color. Yes, I will be purchasing that.
There is a black and white 16mm copy over at eBay selling for $30. No, I will not be purchasing that. Here’s a still close in time to the ones above:
There is also an original poster from Belgium for sale. Looks great, but I have to slow down on my movie poster buying.
The Wikipedia entry for the film is tagged with the category Films based on One Thousand and One Nights which I had read around half of, but there are so many stories that I don’t remember if I encountered this one. It’s a somewhat standard fable though: peasant finds out he’s actually the king after the usurper kidnaps a princess-on-the-run, the peasant fights for and regains the thrown, and kingdom and princess are freed.
I became obsessed with the composer of the soundtrack, Giovanni Fassino. More research to be done…