GOLIATH AGAINST THE GIANTS

1962
Italy/Spain
aka Goliath contro i giganti (I), Goliat contra los gigantes (Es), Die Irrfahrten des Herkules (WG)
Cineproduzioni Associate, Procusa Films (Madrid)
Director : Guido Malatesta
Script : Arpad DeRiso, Gianfranco Parolini, Cesare Seccia, Giovanni Simonelli, Sergio Sollima
Music : Carlo Innocenzi
Cinematography : Alejandro Ulloa
Cast : Brad Harris (Goliath), Gloria Milland (Elge), Fernando Rey (Bokan), Barbara Carroll (Daina), Carmen De Lirio, Fernando Sancho, Gino Marturano, Nello Pazzafini, Jose Rubio, Lina Rosales, Ignazio Dolce, Mimmo Palmara, Angel Aranda, Ray Martino, Angel Ortiz, Luis Marco, Manuel Arbo

I have only been able to see the Italian language print of this one, so my grasp of it's narrative complexities may be somewhat precarious. On the other hand, it's such an ingratiating pile of nonsense that it doesn't really make any difference. There's so much action going on you can quite contentedly follow it's idiosyncratic whims without paying too much attention to anything unimportant such as, well, storyline or characterisation.

Goliath (Brad Harris in another winning performance) is the leader of a group of soldiers who would appear to have been exiled from their home country by a nasty tyrant (that nice Fernando Rey). After helping to liberate an occupied town they set off to sail back to their homeland. Along the way they stop off at a desert island where the find a staked-out babe (Gloria Milland). Before long their vessel is wrecked after an encounter with a giant rubber lizard with big fingers. They find themselves washed ashore in the territory of the amazons, who promptly decimate the surviving members of the crew so that only Goliath, the babe, his chum and another lassie are left to escape by crossing over the desert.

At this stage, approximately twenty-five minutes into the running time, things slow down a bit. There are several scenes where one or other of the characters is captured but - have no fear - our impressively toned hero is there to throw polystyrene boulders at all the enemy soldiers and leap about energetically while, it pains me to say it, accomplishing very little. It all warms up again when he is forced to break into the gladiatorial amphitheatre and rescue the babe, who is tied to a slab under a joltingly lowering ceiling covered with sharp spikes. This scene is notable for the way in which every red-blooded male will notice that the pointiest things on display aren't facing downwards but are in fact, due to an estimable brassiere, aiming upwards.

As fun and as silly as this is, it shouldn't detract from the considerable finesse that has gone into its creation. The photography is superb, with Alejandro Ulloa anticipating the widescreen desertscapes that he was later to film in assorted Spaghetti Westerns. Direction is sharp, with only a slight drip in the middle section to spoil the breakneck pace, and Parolini's set design is as full of baroque touches as you would expect. Lurking amongst the technical crew are the future directors Jorge Grau (Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti, 74)) and Romolo Guerrieri (Sweet Body of Deborah (Il Dolce corpo di Deborah, 69)).

The cast includes a miraculously young looking Fernando Sancho (not playing a Mexican) and the ubiquitous Nello Pazzafini. A habitual heavy, he managed the unusual feat of extending his career until the small lived sword'n'sorcery revival of the early eighties, when he appeared in Joe D'Amato's narcoleptic Ator, The Invincible (Ator l'invincibile, 83). His full credits would probably give the Magna Carta some stiff competition for size, but include winning turns in westerns (Face to Face (Faccia a faccia, 67)), spy films (Danger Death Ray (Il Raggio infernale, 67)), erotic comedies (Boccaccio, 72) and crime thrillers (The Counsellor (Il Consigliori, 73)). A true ikon of Eurotrash cinema.

Well that's all good and proper, I hear you say, but what about I Giganti of the title? Well, they crop up about five minutes from the end and they sure are worth the wait. They may be tall, but they're most certainly fat. In fact, with their bellies bouncing around as they run, they like nothing so much as hairy teletubbies with bad teeth.

Matt Blake