Sandals film with Sergio Ciani
Piero Pierotti (1912-1970) directed this Italian-French film. The script was written by Hungarian Arpad De Riso (1909-1983), who wrote countless scripts for a wide variety of Italian films. It was produced by Romana Film by Fortunato Misiano (1899-1976), who also financed "Caterina di Russia / Catherine of Russia" (1963) with Hildegard Knef and "Le calde notti di Poppea / Poppaea - Empress of the Gladiators" (1969) with Olga Schoberova and Brad Harris.
The story takes place during the time of Emperor Gordianus III (238-244), who resided in Ravenna, although the city only became the main residence of the Western Roman emperors from 402 to 476. However, you shouldn't expect historical accuracy from a sandal film.
When the market of a small village is brutally attacked, the extremely strong blacksmith Ercole (Sergio Ciani) successfully comes to the aid of the hopelessly inferior villagers around the brave Darius (Alberto Cevenini). He learns that there are big problems in his hometown of Ravenna. Without further ado, he visits his sister Arminia (Dina De Santis), who works as a maid for the beautiful emperor's daughter Ulpia (Wandisa Guida, born in 1935, acts as charming as usual). In fact, Emperor Gordianus (Carlo Tamberlani) is murdered by the sinister Mansurio (Livio Lorenzon) at the instigation of his opponent Philipp (Daniele Vargas). While escaping the palace, Ulpia suffers such a severe shock that she loses her memory. She only regains her memory while caring for her injured fiancé Lucius Trajanus (Mimmo Palmara), who was injured on the way to Pannonia, but is then kidnapped through an intrigue by the devious Rhodius (Andrea Aureli). Only at the last second is Ercole, who has had to endure many battles, able to save the fragile beauty from a forced marriage to the usurper.
The plot is relatively confusing and unnecessarily complicated. The great thing about the film is that Sergio Ciani (1935-2015), who started out as Hercules' Steve Reeves' double and second fiddle to Brad Harris in his Sandals films, has a lot of great fight scenes. Lucilius' (Tullio Altamura) tavern also collapses. Sometimes it gets surprisingly brutal, as the muscle-bound warrior throws his anvil at an opponent who is already lying on the ground. It was definitely something special that an Italian bodybuilder like Ciani was allowed to play leading roles that were otherwise filled with American or at least English-speaking muscle men for better marketing reasons. After the end of the Peplum wave of success, Sergio Ciani also played in the Milanese Piccolo Teatro of the successful theater director Giorgio Strehler, where the recently deceased Italian singer Milva was one of his great colleagues.
Mimmo Palmara (1928-2016), who, as a veteran of the Italian sandal film, had already appeared in front of the camera alongside Steve Reeves, Brad Harris and Reg Park, was also able to continue his film career after the end of the golden Peplum era. Nello Pazzafini and Sal Borgese (also seen in the Dudu films) are there in smaller roles as opponents who are easy to beat up, and they were given many a beating in later Bud Spencer films.
Certainly not the most important sandal film from the Italian series production, but definitely worth seeing because of the many fight scenes!
