Duration: 1:24, aspect ration: 2.35:1
From the Warriors 50 Movie Set disc 4, side B, track 2.
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- Joe Robinson – Thor
- Harry Baird – Ubaratutu, Thor’s sidekick. His only other Hercules movie role was an uncredited part in Goliath and the Rebel Slave (1963).
- Susy Anderson – Tamar, Thor’s sister
- Janine Hendy – The Black Queen, queen of the Amazons. She earns an entry in The Female Villains Wiki for this role and its unfortunate name.
- Carlo Foscori – Ghebel Gor, she has different roles in both “Thor” movies and was also in Goliath and the Barbarians (1959) and Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules (1961)
We’ve had Hercules, Maciste, Samson, and several incarnations of Greek and Roman gods, but Thor is a new one. And this film is the second of a pair of films, from the same year, with Joe Robinson as “Thor,” and Harry Baird as (ahem) Ubaratutu. The first was Taur, il re della forza bruta (sadly, not in the Warriors 50 Movie Pack, so I may never know of his other adventure). IMDB says that the reason for naming the character “Taur” in the first film was that he was originally Tarzan but the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate objected. So Tarzan became Taur became Thor.
Interesting trivia: when one of the Amazonians tells the queen of the great warriors they know, there’s a flashback to Hercules fighting a gorilla from Mole Men. Odder still: Ghebel Gor (who was in Mole Men) was not the Amazonian who told of him.
Shameless Pile of Stuff has a good summary of the movie, along with screen shots from a much cleaner print that the one that came in the Warriors set.
There are several stories in the movie: first, that of Thor, his attempted capture by the Amazonians and his friendship with Ubaratutu; his sister Tamar’s capture and training as a gladiatrix and her competition with the scheming Ghebel Gor; and Tamar’s young son, also captured, who is befriended by a young Amazonian girl (their exploits are, as is often the case with kids in films, annoying in the attempt to be “cute”). Juggling these different stories, along with the Three-Stooges-like slapstick, makes the tonal shifts a little too jarring.
There is so much confounding about this film:
- The gladiatrixes chant “elk! elk! elk!” before each match
- The absolutely bonkers headpieces the men wear during matches
- The queen’s white cat (very Bond villain vibes) and after capturing Ubaratutu has him strike bodybuilder poses in front of her (?!)
- Sooooo much makeup
The casual racism (Ubaratutu is used primarily for comedic relief when he’s not calling Thor his “master”) and rampant sexism (“you can’t fight… you’re a woman!”) is par for the time period but still pretty icky.
