User reviews

"Peter Lupus of 'Mission: Impossible' fame stars as the legendary Hercules. He is on a mission to rescue the beautiful Queen of the Hellenes, who has been kidnapped and enslaved by the ruler of Babylon," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. Yes, three thousand years ago in the city of Babylon, popular TV series supporting player Peter Lupus (as "Rock Stevens") had a career in muscle-man movies from Italy. This one, translated literally by American International Pictures as "Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon", is ponderous to a fault. Beautifully shaped Helga Line is the highlight.

*** Ercole contro i tiranni di Babilonia (12/25/64) Domenico Paolella ~ Peter Lupus, Helga Line, Mario Petri, Livio Lorenzon

Domenico Paolello, an Italian director most well known for films in the genre of Hercules (huge classical folk hero versus miscellaneous hordes of evil-doers), directed this fairly typical Hercules film from the mid-1960s. Paolello often worked with American body-builder Rock Stevens during this time, and Stevens was cast as Hercules for this film. Stevens would later sharpen his acting abilities and develop a charismatic and much more memorable character on the popular Mission Impossible TV show (Willie Armitage). At this point in his career, however, Rock was really just another Hercules - albeit one of the most impressively ripped and tall. Like most of the leading men used for this series, he expends little effort acting, and does a lot of flexing, tossing, punching, lifting, etc.

The plot is a bit more complex than the usual beautiful treacherous woman/mysterious powerful empire/classical times Hercules story. Set in the Middle East, the Queen of Helene has been captured by the tyrannous Babylonian council of three. Herc, whose relationship with his queen seems a bit more devoted than the average Greek's, comes to the rescue and quickly becomes a pawn in a vast, confusing, game of thrones. The plot, which is more sophisticated than the average Herc-flick, had some potential, but execution was a bit underwhelming.

Though epic and formulaic, Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon does not present the standard level of grand action Hercules films typically engender. Stevens' best moments are his few fight scenes - where he can use his remarkable physical presence to the greatest advantage - but these are relatively few and far between. Though the Middle Eastern scenery is adequate, the sets and costumes are not nearly as impressive or detailed as many of the other Herculean adventures. Finally, the film's pace is inconsistent. Just as it threatens to lull you to sleep, a crucial fact is presented or the plot takes a big twist.

Recommended only for Hercules fans.

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.

So it was Peter Lupus from Mission Impossible. There is nothing much to recommend this film. It has a silly plot with Hercules attempting to rescue a Babylonian queen who has been enslaved with many others. There is an evil queen. There is a potential suitor for the queen who brings all kinds of gifts and money to the triumvirate which is in control. There is a ridiculous wheel which, when turned, will destroy an entire city. Only one guy can turn it (hint hint). There are some good actions scenes and the print isn't too bad. One thing that was concerting for me were the sound effects. When someone was hit with a club, it made the sound of one of those plastic whiffle ball bats. I'm sure they were made out of plastic, but couldn't they have disguised the sounds a bit better. I have to admit I fast forwarded through the riding and walking scenes which cut out about 15 minutes of the movie.

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.

Ah! Another rainy day,Sunday Sword and Sandal affair..these movies always bring back such joy and regarded youth...if you don't dig "bad" flicks or just plain goofy ones,this isn't yer cup of meat.On the other hand,this isn't too retched-Peter Lupus as the man in charge,a decent plot,the usual foolishness= a good way to waste a Sunday afternoon...what happened to those days,anyhoo...??

Peter Lupus (aka Rock Stevens) stars as Hercules in this colorful Italian sword-and-sandal opus, one of four Lupus made in Italy in

1964-65, before rocketing to stardom in the Mission Impossible TV show. We don't really think of any particular manner of dress in Babylon-- at least I don't!--so the costumers came up with some outlandish fashions here, and the art design is also creative! The scenes of intrigue in the palace are dramatically well-done and feature peplum/swashbuckler regular Livio Lorenzon as the ruler of Babylon, dealing with both his queen, the King of Assyria, and Hercules, who has come to reclaim the Queen of the Hellenes, taken as a Babylonian slave. In some scenes in the film Hercules has a over-large club that he both swings at people and throws! It lends a comic-book flavor to those sequences that is not really in keeping with the serious nature of the rest of the film. Lupus has a powerful physique and is one of the best actors in the peplum genre--all four of his Italian films are worth watching and are distinctly different from each other. Domenico Paolella directed three of Lupus' four peplums and also worked with such Amercians as Guy Madison, Lex Barker, Ed Fury, Don Megowan, Richard Harrison, Mark Forest, Ken Clark, John Ericson and John Ireland. Whether a peplum, a pirate film, a spy film, or a western, he seemed to be able to put together a fast-moving and entertaining feature. Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon is recommended to any serious peplum fan. The VHS copy I watched, while a pan-and-scan TV print, is crisp and clear and colorful.

The Queen of the Hellenes has been taken by the Babylonians as a slave. Troubles is, they don't realise they have her but the Assyrian king does. He visits the three rulers - two brothers and a sister - and attempts to buy all their female slaves. Suspicions are soon aroused. Meanwhile, the mighty Hercules sets out to rescue the captured Queen.

In this instalment of Italian Hercules series, we have the added interest factor in having Peter Lupus in the main role. Going under the name Rock Stevens here, he would go onto significant television fame as Willy Armitage in Mission: Impossible and later as Norberg in Police Squad! But it was in these early peplums that he got an early break. They're not the most demanding of movies for an actor and mainly require a ripped torso which Lupus most certainly possessed. In this one, he comically sports a silly over-sized club that was less Hercules and more Fred Flintstone.

As is often the case in Italian Hercules films there is an evil queen as well as a good girl who the hero must rescue. And also, as seemed to be mostly the way, it's the evil queen who is the best character in the movie. In this entry it is the extremely alluring Helga Liné who takes up this particular mantle as Taneal the scheming sister in the Babylonian hierarchy. Aside from her, it's more or less business as usual sword and sandal style, although the production values did seem a little better than normal. The story-line is pretty predictable though and nothing is really there to surprise us. When it's announced half-way through that there is a large wheel in the catacombs of the city that, when turned by a hundred men, will bring the city cashing down, it's not a giant stretch guessing what's going to happen later on.

Instead of Goliath saving Babylon from evil rulers - it is Hercules that saves the people from an evil, nasty, wicked sorceress.

Goliath and the Sins of Babylon (1963) and this film are about the same, compatible with the strongman saving the population of Babylon from evil that is in power.

Nothing overly special about this film. Standard sword and sandal flick with different actors and a little different story that centers around our heroic strongman saving a mass of people. It's an okay enough peplum that I can relax to and watch the mind-numbing action and cool costumes while getting ready to fall asleep.

2/10

Quite a few actors portrayed Hercules in all the Sword and Sandals movies. Lupus is on the case in this one and he has a mighty weapon. Which may make you wonder if Hercules would even need that I reckon, but then again, there is no reason to question anything in these movies.

Oiled bodies and some fight scenes included this is another one of thoes and will either entertain you, because you are into the movies or not. Costumes are nicely chosen and the sets were also fine. Of course most is being reused, which is more than ok

Hercules is a quasi-hero here, overall does the 'good' thing though it's always important to remember that civilians can often be collateral damage when collapsing buildings and empires. I guess finesse isn't a Herculean trait. Along with the strongman sorts of acts, there was a fair bit of fighting to be had as well. Some political intrigue brought about mild interest into how all this was going to unravel.

Plot became very contrived, predictable, and absurd, but am fairly sure this wasn't the point of the movie. Acting was very much lacking by most, especially those who had a lot of screen time. I'm alright with hokey effects, but there's got to be some points of redemption somewhere.

Peter Lupus (the original Mission Impossible TV show) is Hercules here in an attempt to make another Steve Reeves.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers didn't take the biggest lesson from the Reeves Hercules, and that is to keep it moving.

Reeves' Hercules films are quite cheap and the acting is under-par, but there is always something happening. He stops runaway carriages, battles lions, and go after shape-shifters. It's a fun, fast-moving, silly adventure that you can enjoy.

Here we have long periods of talking and badly done political discussions. Periods that pass without Hercules even being on-screen.

Why they felt the need to have so much boring talk going on is beyond me. The plot is simple. Queen is kidnapped, everyone wants queen.

But we keep cutting to the rulers of Babylon chatting amongst themselves and half-heartedly scheming.

Worse still, it takes Hercules himself 50 minutes of the movie to even GET to Babylon, and in that time he has two fights. One where he chucks rocks at people and another fairly decent battle scene. But this adds up to less than 10 minutes of actual action.

The action, sets, and costumes look decent for this kind of thing. There just needs to be more of it.

As it is, this movie commits the cardinal sin of low budget films - it's very boring in places. Basically, whenever Hercules is on-screen it's fine. But for the rest of it, not so much.

And since Herc is only there for about 30 minutes in the WHOLE film, you can see what the issue is.

Queen Asparia of Hellenes has been captured by the Babylonians but has managed to keep her identity secret until King Phaleg arrives offering to buy all the slaves in order to find her and marry her for himself but when the three tyrannical rulers of Babylon discover his plan they to decide to try and find her but Hercules however has heard that she is been held against her will and travels to Babylon to free her.

Peter Lupus (of Mission: Impossible fame) plays Hercules, wielding a giant club and tossing boulders at the dreaded slave owners of the twin cities of Babylon and Nineva. Unfortunately, Hercules only turns up every now and then to save the weak from the evil Babylonians. The villains (Livio Lorenzon, Tullio Altamura, Helga Line and Mario Petri are power mad and willing to stab each other in the back) and the slaves get more screen time, but still it's a fairly entertaining viewing, though on occasion scattered with slow spots. The beautiful Helga Line, some good action and the villainy keeps thing brewing. Ends with the city of Babylon collapsing, thanks to Hercules turning a wheel. Good sequence.

After the King of Abyssinia (Petri) is double-crossed by the three rulers of Babylon (Line, Lorenzon, Altamura), he enlists the aid of the mighty Hercules (Lupus, billed as 'Rock Stevens') to overthrow Babylon and capture a Queen (Polani) hiding amongst serfs in the city, to be his bride. Polani also happens to be Hercules' girlfriend, leading to further treachery as Petri seeks to rub out Hercules once the Queen has been delivered to safety.

Lupus is a more affable Hercules than most, a likable hulk who went on to co-star in the "Mission: Impossible" TV series in the late sixties. But my favourite part of this Herc episode is the appearance of German bombshell Helga Line. She's something special, and has a sizable role as the seductive and scheming sister, seeking to take the throne of Babylon that she reluctantly shares with her two brothers through an elaborate plan involving a massive underground winch system primed to literally tear the city apart.

All the elements are present with fierce battles, glorious colourful costumes and sets, heroism and tragedy, inane dialogue ("look our king is dead, let's surrender") and the usual array of villains and conspiracies to entertain fans of the genre. In terms of highlights, don't miss the scene in which Hercules is invited to fight with pretenders to his mantle and discovers that the fight has been fixed in his opponents' favour - pity the fool.

"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.