Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon (1964)

From my favorite movies..

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

"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.

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.

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 Assyria n 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

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.