Maciste

Clementina Gay, fleeing from the bad guys, ducks into a movie house showing CABIRIA. She decides that Bartolemeo Pagano, playing Maciste, is Maciste, and would not turn down a lady in distress. So she writes him a letter asking for help, sends it to the studio, and eventually he does.

The story is that her father died, her uncle took over everything, had her mother stuck in the madhouse and was keeping her prisoner. What movie strongman could resist a plot like that? Especially when it gives him chances to do things like carry tables with his teeth, rip the tops off desks, break through solid floors with his head, and occasionally wind up stripped to the waist like the Incredible Hulk.

It's not an especially serious movie, given the handling of such matters, but the film makers knew they had a nice commercial flick here, and included a few bondage scenes -- Miss Gay looks singularly unconcerned bound to a chair. The result is a fine little programmer, the first of many starring Pagano in the role