brogmiller

Made at a time when the popularity of the Sword and Sandal sub-genre was at its height, before giving way to the Spaghetti Western, this is a rare example of romance and court intrigue taking precedence over mindless, muscle bound heroics.

At one would expect it plays fast and loose with historical fact for although Queen Zenobia was defeated by the Romans and her life spared by Emperor Aurelian, there is no record anywhere of a relationship with a Roman General whilst the makers have gone so far as to give him the name of Marcus Valerius whose military exploits took place a century later!

The film's poster promises 'a wondrous spectacle bigger than anything you've seen before' which certainly applies to Anita Ekberg's chest whilst the exotic Chela Alono, affectionately known as Cuba's H-Bomb, performs one of her hoochie-coochie dances guaranteed to quicken the pulse and send a rush of blood to the corpora cavernosa.

The film itself is something of a hotchpotch and betrays the input of various contributors. Credited director Guido Brignone became ill during production, fatally so as it turned out so Riccardo Freda and a certain Michelangelo Antonioni were drafted in whilst the cinematography by uncredited Mario Bava is evident, especially in the dungeon scenes. Heaven only knows which scenes Antonioni directed but there is no doubt that Freda was responsible for the climactic battle scene which will have animal rights activists foaming at the mouth. Credited composer Angelo Lavagnino provides a truly magnificent score.

The production is certainly well mounted and lavishly decorated whilst the version I saw has mercifully been spared the dreaded mid-Atlantic dubbing with Ekberg's Zenobia and Aurelius of Georges Marchal voiced by the ubiquitous Lydia Simoneschi and Emilio Cigoli.

Zenobia was a fascinating woman and by the standards of her time an enlightened ruler and one would hope that one day a film will emerge that will do her justice but that alas hardly seems likely.

This is Luis Bunuel's first European film for twenty-three years, badly received on its release and since banished to the realms of cinematic obscurity, unfairly so.

Adapted by Bunuel and Jean Ferry from a novel by Emmanuelle Robles described by the director as 'a story so perfectly pure', this is one of his most conventional and indeed rigorous films in which his customary anti-bourgeois stance is tempered by a compassion unusual in his output.

His excellent cast is headed by Georges Marchal, a hunk who can also act and who convinces as a doctor with the best intentions struggling to break free from his bourgeois mindset whilst Lucia Bosé as his lover does not have her strongest role but certainly her most sympathetic. The police commissioner is written as a far from one-dimensional character and is splendidly portrayed by Julien Bertheau. Both Marchal and Bertheau were of course to feature more than once for this director whilst in a relatively minor role is veteran Gaston Modot who had appeared in his infamous 'L' Age D'Or' thirty-five years earlier.

In what could have been merely a melodrama, we have here not only Bunuel the cinéaste but Bunuel the humanist.

MGM has rustled up this acceptable Western for their longest serving contract player Robert Taylor and is directed in customary low-key style by John Sturges.

Sandwiched between Sturges' two Westerns for Paramount, this is undeniably the weakest although watchable thanks to the dynamic between Taylor and Richard Widmark and the stunning backdrop of the Sierra Nevada around Lone Pine and Death Valley as captured by Robert Surtees. The two from Paramount had the bonus of music by Dimitri Tiomkin whereas this one was made during a strike by musicians so the score has been cobbled together from other features.

Good support from Henry Silva and Robert Middleton and although Patricia Owens seems a little on the young side for Taylor, he is still in good enough nick to get away with it. The film really belongs to Widmark who later recalled: 'Bad picture, good part'.

Robert Taylor had joined MGM in 1934 and was still their biggest star when his tenure ended in 1959. The end of an era.