Goliath and the Barbarians (1959)

Original title:  Il Terrore dei Barbari

Director:  Carlo Campogalliani

Writers:  Gino Mangini, Emimmo Salvi, Nino Stresa, Giuseppe Taffarel

Composers:  Carlo Innocenzi (original Italian version), Les Baxter (US version)

Starring:  Steve Reeves, Chelo Alonso, Bruce Cabot, Giulia Rubini, Arturo Dominici, Gino Scotti, Livio Lorenzon, Luciano Marin, Andrea Checchi

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  I Will Kill 10,000 Barbarians...And They Will Call Me GOLIATH!

Plot:  When barbarians invade his village and kill his father, a local man wages a one-man war against them.

My rating:  6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

It's a pretty good bet that if Steve Reeves is in a period piece as a hunky Hercules type, then there's a good chance it's at least mildly entertaining.  I'd say this one's better than average but not good enough to stand out in any way among the other films of the time and genre.  If you like your Steve Reeves shirtless then this movie will more than satisfy that requirement.  He's good in this, although it's a shame his voice was dubbed by someone else.  There's enough action sprinkled throughout to check that box off.  The pacing is pretty good and it's a good looking picture.  The store more than satisfies an adventure film like this.  When American-international Pictures bought the rights for the US, they had it re-scored by Les Baxter.  That's the version I saw.  I'd like to see the original Italian version with Carlo Innocenzi's score.  Baxter's is good, with a memorable main theme.  Soundtracks were released of both.  Maybe I'll find them on YouTube.

Revolt of the Slaves (1960)

Original title:  La Rivolta degli Schiavi

Director:  Nunzio Malasomma

Writers:  Nicholas Patrick Wiseman, Duccio Tessari, Stefano Strucchi, Daniel Mainwaring

Composer:  Angelo Francesco Lavagnino

Starring:  Rhonda Fleming, Lang Jeffries, Dario Moreno, Ettore Manni, Wandisa Guida, Gino Cervi, Fernando Rey, Serge Gainsbourg, Jose Nieto

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  WANTON . . . TEMPTRESS . . . She put the torch to an empire of sin!

Plot:  During the later years of the Roman Empire, the daughter of a wealthy patrician falls in love with a Christian slave.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  Nope.

Roman 1:  The slaves are revolting!
Roman 2:  You're telling me, they stink on ice!

If only this picture were rich with dialogue like that but, alas.  I was hoping this would be more of a Sword & Sandal action flick.  It has some action (with some clumsily choreographed fight scenes) but there's also a lot of Christian drama (yawn).  A nasty side effect of the latter is the overuse of cheesy church organ music.  It's so bad.  One thing you don't see in these pictures are roles for black actors.  This one has a sizeable role for Vanoye Aikens (as Iface) and Dolores Francine (as Liubaia).  That was refreshing.  Iface is one of the bad guys but still.  The overly religious story doesn't do it for me at all.  Besides the religious part of it, movies like these about the persecution of Christians in the waning days of the Roman Empire almost always follow the same overused and boring-ass tropes and this one is no different. 

How many people on this production approved of Vibio's (Jeffries) costume (on the right)?  It's awful.

For my money, the best part of the movie was the last 15 or more minutes when the Christians are in the Colosseum when the prisoners are picked off one by one and then something shocking happens to the last one.  But, naturally, this is going to end on an uplifting note to give hope and inspiration to all.  Yawn.  When looking for movie posters to add to this entry, I came across a review of the Kino Blu-ray and the widescreen print looks gorgeous.  I watched a lousy fullscreen VHS copy.  I bet I might've liked it more if I had that Blu-ray but then it would've been a waste of money ultimately since I would only watch it once and get rid of it.  Sigh.

Sins of Rome (1953)

Original title: Spartaco

Director: Riccardo Freda

Writers: Maria Bory, Jean Ferry, Gino Visentini

Composer: Renzo Rossellini

Starring: Massimo Girotti, Ludmilla Tcherina, Yves Vincent, Gianna Maria Canale, Carlo Ninchi, Vittorio Sanipoli, Carlo Giustini, Umberto Silvestri, Teresa Franchini, Renato Baldini, Nerio Bernardi, Cesare Bettarini, Darix Togni

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Mighty Spectacle Drama!

Plot: 74 B.C. Spartacus, a young officer in the Roman Empire, is condemned to be a slave. Brought back to Roma in a gladiators' school, he escapes and stirs up all the slaves in a revolt against the Roman Empire.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

It's not a bad picture about Spartacus' slave revolt but it sure feels awfully light and condensed.  The version I saw was a poor VHS quality print with an English dub that runs a mere 75 minutes.  Obviously you need more time to tell a story of this magnitude.  We only spend a few minutes with Spartacus in gladiator school and then it's off to free some slaves where the second half of the picture spends its time.  The acting is stagy and majestic; over the top by today's standards but par for the course back then and it being a Sword and Sandal (peplum) picture, it's completely justified.   I don't really hold that against it.  There are all kinds of things that could've made this better like seeing a longer cut, in the original Italian AND seeing a much cleaner, brighter print.  My rating is purely for what I saw.  Having seen SPARTACUS (1960) many times (and in super 70 in a theater - WOW!), it's really hard not to conjure up images of that film while watching any and every telling of the story that came before or after.  That film is magnificent and I doubt there will be a picture that will best it.  I'm getting off the path.  It was neat seeing a tale of Spartacus I'd never seen and one that pre-dates the 1960 one and made by Italians where they would soon rule the world a few years later regarding Sword and Sandal movies.