Duration: 1:28:00, aspect ratio: 2.35:1
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This is from the Warriors 50 Movie Set disc 3, side A, track 1.
- Delia D’Alberti – Princess Billis/Selene
- Sergio Ciani (Alan Steel) – Maciste/Hercules, also in Hercules Unchained (1959) [ Warriors 50 Movie Pack ], The Fury of Hercules (1962) [Warriors 50 Movie Pack], Hercules and the Masked Rider (1963) [Warriors 50 Movie Pack], Hercules and the Black Pirates (1964), Hercules Against Rome (1964)
- Jany Clair – Queen Samara, also in Conquest of Mycene (1963) with Gordon Scott, her entry in The Female Villains Wiki
- Anna Maria Polani – Agar, the daughter of Gladius, also in Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon (1964) [Warriors 50 Movie Pack], Goliath at the Conquest of Damascus (1965)
- Tony Russell – voice of Tirteo, also in the first and second movies of Margheriti’s Gamma One quadrilogy The Wild, Wild Planet (1966) and The War of the Planets (1966)
- Nando Tamberlani – Chandellor Gladius, also in Ursus in the Land of Fire (1963) [Warriors 50 Movie Pack]
Director Giacomo Gentilomo’s last film. Music by Carlo Franci who also wrote for Beast of Babylon Against the Son of Hercules (1963), The Terror of Rome Against the Son of Hercules (1964), and Tyrant of Lydia Against the Son of Hercules (1963).
[ IMDB | Stream (Dailymotion I, 1:27:13) | Stream (Dailymotion II, 1:26:59) |Stream (YouTube I, 1:22:47) | Stream (YouTube II, 1:26:59)| Wikipedia ]
PEPLUM TV has several articles on HAtMM with, confoundingly, near-pristine screen shots, several in widescreen. Where are they getting these copies?!? Sci-Fi Movie Page has a review giving the movie a generous 1/2 star out of 4. DVD Talk also has an extremely informative one (with encyclopedic detail on the history and filming)… and it’s based on a 2.35:1 re-release of the film! $19.95 tho. Certainly not worth a sub-1-star flick.
We start with the retelling of the story of a fireball crashing on Samar, the mountain of death, and because of that every full moon (!!) locals must sacrifice children to quell the mountain’s anger. We see them thrown into a stone door in the mountain, the interior emitting a mysterious bright light.
Chancellor Gladius begs Queen Samara to send for Hercules to save them. She declines and we know something’s up.
We then move to Hercules when he encounters his:
1st Trial: Hercules attacked by soldiers while riding to Samara. Who sent them?
Back at the palace, the Moon Man visits the queen and it is revealed that she is plotting with them. They must sacrifice Princess Billis, sister to the queen, to bring about the return of Queen Celena, the moon queen who will lead the moon men to take over the world. Queen Samara’s reward will be eternal life and eternal beauty.
Hercules, having defeated the soldiers-of-suspicious-origin, meets Agar, the daughter of Gladius, on his way to Samara.
10:00
At the palace, we are introduced to Prince Darix, cousin of the queen. He and Billis want to marry but the queen needs to give Billis to the moon men to enact their evil plan. Gladius, knowing that the queen wants Hercules dead, leads him through secret tunnels the lead to the palace. Here, Hercules encounters his:
2nd Trial: Hercules falls into a pit that slowly fills with water. He escapes by, I think, breaking through one of the walls that leads to another chamber. It’s unclear and this Trial took way too long.
(Notable characteristic of these movies: lots of secret passageways and underground tunnels.)
Above, Gladius, having been separated from Hercules is killed by wall spikes after he trips a booby-trap. Agar finds him and then wanders the tunnels looking for Hercules.
20:00
Elsewhere, Hercules wands the tunnels looking for Gladius when he encounters his:
3rd Trial: Hercules fights some sort of Sabre-Toothed Monkey Monster. It wins some sort of bad costume award.
Sabre-toothed Monkey Monster free, her finds Agar at her dying father. Gladius’s last words to them are that Agar must lead Hercules to the rebels in order to stop the evil queen. Meanwhile, to squelch any possible lover’s intervention, Queen Samara sends Darix away to another as an ambassador. Princess Billis is unprotected and the way to awaken Moon Queen Selene is clear.
30:00
Darix leaves for Corus/Corinth (?). Agar warns Billis that he’s headed for a trap so Billis asks Hercules to save him. Ambushed! The innkeeper informs Hercules that the queen has a powder that makes men love her. (Note on other magic: in Hercules the Invincible (1964), Hercules find a one-use magic amulet in tree, in Triumph of the Son of Hercules (1961) the queen has a magic scepter, in Hercules vs. the Giant Warriors (1964) a witch has a magic pool (?!) to spy on people.
4th Tiral: Hercules fights the a group of soldiers trying to kill Darix.
Meanwhile, the queen gives Billis a sleeping potion and kidnaps her for the ritual. The full moon has risen!
40:00
In town, soldiers gather townspeople in preparation for the sacrifice. Tirteo, the innkeeper, and Taris try to kidnap Agar but Hercules intervenes and has his:
5th Trial: A slapstick fight that goes on way too long.
hercules rides to save the sacrifices, chained together and led up a mountain, the woman he thought was billis is not, caught in a net. samara took billis to the moon men to sacrifice her and create a replica and awaken thier queen selene, when it happens the moon will come closer to the earth and destroy everything so that only moon men can live, samara will be rewarded with immortality, she must kill hercules
50:00
Agar is captured after she finds the chained Hercules in the caves and she must stand by as he endures his:
6th Trial: Spiked walls! Now we’re going somewhere. Slaves are whipped to pull the ropes that will close the spikes on a struggling Hercules. Unfortunately, is goes on way too long. Spoiler: the ropes break and he is freed!
In the presence of such oiled-muscle heroics, Samara falls in love with him and we are reminded that she has the magic powder to make him reciprocate! (Which movie used this before?) Wise to her scheme, he dumps his drink when she’s not watching then comically finishes the empty goblet when she turns back.
Samara banishes Agar from Samar and she, Agar, goes to Darix to warn him and they are captured by Samara’s soldiers. The evil-queen-of-Samara-soon-to-be-queen-of-the-world cruelly shows the captives to Hercules and sentences them to die of starvation. There’s slow and suspenseful, then there’s just slow. Starvation as a cinematic punishment is the latter.
Back at the tavern, Tirteo the Tony Russel-voiced tavern-keeper, gathers the people to rebel and the army, realizing the evil of the queen, joins their uprising.
Hercules tricks the queen into telling him her plan, and we get the: Expositional Monologue where we learn that her ancestors were “sorcerers to the monsters of the mountain” (ok). He escapes and fights his way to free Darix and Agar and save Billis from her sacrificial exsanguination. With soldiers helping the rebelling citizen, Samaras guards are overrun and she must flee.
1:10:00
Hercules fights and kills the lead guard by bending a metal bar around his neck. Correction: by bending a “metal” bar around his neck. Samara flees to the head Moon Man Rudolphis through a sand storm but Rudolphis turns on her has his Rock Men Soldiers kill her. Hercules and the townsfolk and the soldiers follows Samara through the sand storm to get to the somewhat-closer-to-being-sacrificed Billis but all are separated. This sand storm is one of the more famously bad moments of a film that offers much competition for famously bad moments.
And now for one of the famously odd moments of the film: some sort of bulbus rock pulsates as an unconscious billis bleeds out. Her blood is required to bring Selene back to life and lead the Moon Men to conquer the Earth.
1:20:00
As the moon gets closer (why?) the seas churn, volcanoes erupt, lightning storms rage. Correction: stock footage seas churn, stock footage volcanoes erupt, stock footage lightning storms rage.
In a… dramatic?… climax, Hercules moves the stone door to the mountain of death in order to free the sacrificial captives (seen at the beginning of the film so, full circle) but must then fight the Rock Men Soldiers. You knew it had to happen. Eight-foot-tall Rock Men Soldiers are thrown left and right and eventually Hercules brings the ceiling down upon them. He must numbly leap through the remaining other Rock Men Soldiers to get to Billis just as Selene starts waking up. He brings yet another ceiling down and rescues all. Fin.
