CONQUEROR OF ATLANTIS (1965)

[Xenorama ™]

Kirk Morris ... Hercules (really, Heracles)
Luciana Gilli ... Virna
Piero Lulli ... Ramir
Hélène Chanel ... Queen Ming
Andrea Scotti ... Karr
Mahmoud El-Sabbaa ... Assur
Fortunato Arena ... 'Golden Ghost' Man
Livia Rossetti
Mohammed Tawfik
Caterina Trentini (as Kathleen Trentini)

actually, Kirk is truly Greek in this movie- he's "Heracles" not Hercules, which of course, is the correct Grecian name for the original hero.

he washes ashore in the Middle East, where somehow that's the only water around. he unites two warring desert factions led by Assur and Ramir, and then finds the remnants of Atlantis (in the desert?). there he has to stop the raiding of the ghosts and phantoms.

Heracles is in full hero regalia here, right down to neat designs on
the tights. this is one weird peplum, no question. women warriors
who die if they "know the love of a man", gold faced zombies... even death rays! the desert setting is a nice change of pace. there is a lot of fisticuff action in here. this was made late in the cycle when most of the peplums being made were of the "gladiator" variety with less and less fantastic elements. this one is highly enjoyable (if a little padded with gold phantom fight footage at the end).

[RedKing]

This was a cool peplum! I thought it had alot of the old Flash Gordon serial look to it too-especially with the death rays and the high priest that looked alot like Ming the Merciless. Kirk Morris was pretty good in his peplum roles and he looks very young-I don't know how old he was but he looks like he's in his early 20s as opposed to most of the other peplum stars who were in their 30s.

[Shonokin]

Wow, sounds like an early Republic serial. "Hercules in the Undersea Kingdom"!

[Shonokin]

Well I didn't buy the restored DVD of GOLIATH AND THE DRAGON, but did spend $17.00 at DDD for "50 WARRIOR MOVIE Megapack" which I think I've listed here before. Along with Goliath, I'm particularly looking forward to:

Hercules in the Haunted World
Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules
The Last of the Vikings (thought I think I have that under a different name)
Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules
Hercules Against the Moon Men
Kindar the Invulnerable (just because I like the name)

I imagine they are all in crappy public domain shape, but 50 movies for $17, it's worth it.

[Xenorama ™]

i've several of those from that set (thanks Mike) and some are better than others. i don't know if CONQUEROR is in there or not, but i'd be more than happy to send you a copy.

the rest, while not in great shape (some are better than others) are still fun to watch and it's almost like seeing them on that VHF station 30 years ago!

this one is just great fun, and very weird, which always helps. it's something to see the "phantoms" run around in blue tights and gold face in the middle of the desert. it sure doesn't get much more surreal than that!

[RedKing]

That 50 Warriors pack is a great set, even with the PD quality of the movies. But like David said, it's like seeing them on TV all those years ago. ATLANTIS isn't in the set, but there are so many excellent films in there. The print of HERCULES AND THE MOONMEN is actually the uncut one with the apemonster too.

[Shonokin]

That would be great David ;D as I doubt I'd ever see it any other way and it looks like really wacky fun.

In fact it reminds me of a Manly Wade Wellman story called "Day of the Conquerors" which is about Martians trying to invade the earth during the Ice Age and are repelled by heroic cave men. If interested, you can read it online here (or print it out, etc).

Thanks for the encouragement guys, it's always iffy when getting those big ass sets of PD stuff. I've got a really raggidy version of Goliath and the Dragon that the colors are so faded that in some scenes it literally looks like sepiatoned black & white!

I was thinking that "Last of the Vikings" was actually "Erik the Conqueror" but upon doing some research, it isn't, though they came out around the same time and Mario Bava directed Erik and helped on Last of the Vikings.

[Xenorama ™]

done and done.

and another cool story to print. where do you find this stuff?

[Shonokin]

Thanks David!

I've run the Wellman website for about 10 years, so I've got lots and lots of interesting tidbits that relates to him collected up. I do regular searches on the interweb and usenet for anything new that pops up.

[Xenorama ™]

so, how'd you like the movie?