Arms and the man

Well, it was nice to have a perfect total of 100 posts for a couple months. But it's high time we came to grips with 50 Sci-Fi Classics -- a set into which we've dipped our toe before, admittedly, with movies like Eegah!, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, and our beloved Snowbeast. And hey, we like science fiction, right?

Here, though, we're faced with the grim reality that, in the 250-pack version of 50 Sci-Fi Classics, at least 12 of its 49* movies are peplum: swords and sandals, musclemen and imperious queens, the whole works. Watching such a film every so often is one thing, but working our way through a dozen of them is likely to be a chore, especially with Mill Creek's hraka-quality transfers.

*(Yes, 49 movies: after removing 6 films like The Alpha Incident and The Wasp Woman that would otherwise be duplicated elsewhere on the 250-pack -- which is, in itself, laudable -- Mill Creek replaced them instead with four peplum epics, plus Lucifer Complex.)

Still, if we've gotten through endless identical 1930s movies with wisecracking female reporters and unconventional poison delivery systems -- each of them merely an interchangeable (and hat-wearing) part of an infinite whole, an isolated slice of an spunky Mandelbrot set -- then we can handle this.

So, it's time to put some pep(lum) in our step(lum) and begin our Herculean ordeal with these two films, both of which prominently feature a tug-of-war contest with a strong man in the middle.

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Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops (1961)
(aka Maciste nella terra dei ciclopi)

Grade: C-

As you can see, fans of hue, tint and shade aren't likely to get their chroma fix from Mill Creek's edition of this Gordon Mitchell vehicle. Almost every color has somehow been eradicated from this print, leaving a palette dominated by the dull reddish-brown you see here. The only major exceptions are the opening titles, which have something vaguely resembling blue --

-- and this, which must have been the greenest dress ever (made of leprechaun sweat and emerald juice, presumably) to cut through the sepia murk:

Fortunately, despite the visual shortcomings of this copy, Atlas in the Land of Cyclops is entertaining and brisk enough to be tolerable, even at 98 minutes. The plot is somewhere between other peplum films we've seen -- say, Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules -- and a "Save my baby!" film like The Lion Man, though Maciste/Atlas's relationship with lions...

...is rather more complex.

No, no, it's not that kind of film: the love interest isn't leonine, but instead the more vulpine Queen Capys (Chelo Alonso), a descendant of Circe. Yes, that Circe, the one famously outfoxed by Ulysses -- well, Odysseus, but this is an Italian film.

And if you remember who else famously got tricked by Ulysses -- or, hell, if you know the title of this movie -- then you can probably guess who else is sure to show up before the end.

So let's see -- there's a curse, and a plan to sacrifice the first-born son ("and little Fabio"!) of King Agisandro (Germano Longo). No points for guessing who he descends from: come on, turkey!

Naturally Maciste intervenes, and in the process, somehow gets caught up in the most gratuitously racialized tug-of-war we've ever seen. Here's the team on stage left:

And now, the team on stage right:

Yeah, that's, uh...a thing. And just like in real life, nobody wins this sort of contest -- except the guy with the power who's really pulling the strings.

With the Strom Thurmond Memorial Tug-of-War done and dusted, Maciste captures the eye of the queen, to whom his muscular physique and decidedly non-sycophantic behavior are a major turn-on. But don't take our word for it, ask Capys:

"Ever since you came into my life, you have made me forget everything. Even my duties as a queen -- and my pride as a woman. Everything."

...well, except that whole curse and revenge thing, I've still got that in my Palm Pilot. But the rest? Blank slate, baby.

Soon enough there's a drugged drink -- shades of The Lion Man, yet again -- and a jealous rival:

The rest you can probably guess, so have a silly dance routine and let's move on.

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Hercules and the Masked Rider (1963)

Grade: C

Now this was a surprise: not B.C., but very much A.D., and set in 16th-century Spain to boot. Plus Hercules (Sergio Ciani) isn't even the main character. Don't get us wrong, he's definitely in the mix, and here's that tug-of-war we promised you. (This one's even racism-free.)

But the real story is one of intrigue and betrayal, honor lost and regained, and lovers besieged by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Our hero, Don Juan (Mimmo Palmara), is in love with Dona Blanca (José Greci), and they try to elope --

-- but instead he gets exiled from the lands of her father Don Francisco (Renato Navarrini). You see, Dad hopes to marry her off to Don Ramiro Suarez (Arturo Dominici), a perfidious nobleman who might as well have "I AM EVIL" tattooed on his forehead.

So Don Juan falls in with the gypsies -- and once again, if you know the title of the film, you can guess what identity he soon adopts.

Hijinks, gypsy dances, and swordfights ensue, just as you'd expect.

In fact this whole film is largely "just as you'd expect", not that it's necessarily a bad thing. Maybe we were just relieved to get an unexpected respite from sandals and Roman architecture; maybe it's just that we don't know from Zorro -- let alone its ripoffs.

But though Hercules and the Masked Rider is a standard-issue film in every way, we didn't mind it all, and even sort of enjoyed it. Its edge over Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops? Well, it has a drugging, and colors too. (So did Curse of the Headless Horseman, but you get our point.)

So instead of boring you with the details of its subplots -- mostly involving other pairs of young lovers -- let's finish things off with five people in a tree.