Steve Reeves

The English-language title and the Anglo-Saxon name of the director (Alex Burks) of this film would tend to lead one to surmise that A Long Ride From Hell is a Hollywood western. But wait! That terrain looks awfully Italian, and it so happens that Alex Burks is really Camillo Bazzoni. You'll probably catch onto the film's country of origin the moment Steve "Hercules" Reeves rides into view; Reeves (who co-wrote the screenplay) plays a rancher framed on a train-robbery charge. "Long" and "Hell" are the operative words here. Originally titled Vivo per la Tua Morte, this sleep-inducer was Steve Reeves' cinematic swan song. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Somewhere there is someone who finds the lunatic Italian comedy team of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia funny; most filmgoers watch in stony silence, longing for Jerry Lewis to make a comeback. In The Shortest Day, F and C play a pair of zany World War I conscripts who cause more trouble on the front than all the Kaiser's troops combined. To assure international distribution of the Franco and Ciccio films, most of their vehicles featured popular veteran stars in secondary roles. In War Italian Style, Buster Keaton was the unlucky guest performer, while in Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs Vincent Price did the box-office duty. The Shortest Day, perhaps in emulation of Darryl Zanuck's somewhat more expensive The Longest Day, has a manifest of 44 celebrity "bit actors:" Walter Pidgeon, Simone Signoret, Sylva Koscina, Steve Reeves, Stewart Granger, David Niven, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anouk Aimee...There are more, but there's no point in embarrassing the entire motion picture industry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This unexceptional Duel of the Titans takes place on two different levels at once. The legendary brothers Romulus and Remus go at it to see who will ultimately survive and found the city of Caesars. And the slightly less legendary but still impressive Steve Reeves (Romulus) and Gordon Scott (Remus) are brought into a kind of body-building competition. Romulus and Remus are shown from their earliest beginnings as abandoned babes on the Tiber River, destined to face all sorts of challenges. First come their adventures after they are adopted by a female wolf as her own offspring. Then they later handle catastrophes like an erupting volcano or hand-to-paw combat with an irate bear. Once the two brothers have reached adulthood, they become enemies, as Remus seeks to aggrandize his power and Romulus seeks to cut him down to size. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this sword and sandal adventure, Aeneas and his Trojan warriors take on the evil Etruscans to preserve the honor of their hometown. The tale is also known the Last Glory of Troy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Steve Reeves gives the most dramatically demanding performance of his career (and a surprisingly good one) in The Trojan Horse. Essentially a retelling of the final year of the siege of Troy from the point of view of Aeneas (Reeves), the movie is filled with fascinating portrayals. Aeneas, taking the interpretation from the poet Virgil, is the wisest of the Trojans and, after ten years of war, has become the leading advocate for finding an end to the fighting. His wisdom and nobility have earned him a place at the table with King Priam and the other rulers, which puts him at odds with the vain, jealous Paris and his Helen. Opening with the slaying of Hector by Achilles, the film is steeped in complex personal relationships and mythological conceits. John Drew Barrymore is the other "name" actor here, playing Ulysses as a clever, cynical, and bold warrior among the Greeks. Reeves brings real nobility to Aeneas and relies on his acting skills as much as his physique to bring off this movie, often mixing the two in a script filled with ironies, as when Aeneas must kill a Greek warrior for whom he earlier expressed respect. Along with Reeves' two Hercules films from the end of the 1950s, and Vittorio Cottafavi's Hercules and the Captive Women, this is one of the best examples of Italy's sword-and-sandal genre. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Steve Reeves trades sandals and togas for the frilly, functional outfits common to 17th-century buccaneers in Morgan the Pirate. As the real-life Sir Henry Morgan, Reeves is sold into slavery and forced to work on a Panama plantation. He is purchased by haughty Valerie Lagrange; they fall in love, and as punishment Reeves is condemned to toil in the galley of a Spanish vessel. He leads an escape, overtakes the ship, and establishes himself as a pirate captain. In true Captain Blood fashion, he eventually catches up with his former amour LaGrange, laying waste to most of Panama in the process. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This was ironically the last film made by director Mario Bonnard, and it follows the pattern of the classic Italian costume dramas about macho or mythic heroes, in this case, a certain Glaucus (Steve Reeves, the glorious Greco-Roman past could not occur without him). Taking the cue from its larger-than-life hero, the story, set in 79 A.D., bounds from one spectacle to another without undue concern for nuanced dialogue or subtleties of character. Glaucus has to single-handedly tackle the brutal thugs that are taking over Pompeii and is forced to fight off a lion and a crocodile -- though not all at the same time. He overcomes wounds and enemies in preparation for his toughest fight, that of rescue and survival when Mt. Vesuvius blows its top, the biggest and final spectacle in a series of battleground fireworks. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Rather than telling a dramatized version of the exploits of the Greek runner Phidippides (or Philippides, as used here), this standard Italian costume drama has the great athlete almost single-handedly defeating the Persians. Set in 490 B.C. when the Persian armies were ready to finish conquering Greece and head into Europe, Phidippides (Steve Reeves, who else?) rallies the Athenians and they fight a series of spectacular, massive battles. In reality, Phidippides had run 140 miles to Sparta and back to ask for their help before any battles began. The Persians had already landed on the plains of Marathon, 26 miles from Athens but thanks to Phidippides forewarning, they were defeated by advancing Athenian forces. Phidippides' final run from Marathon back to Athens to warn them about a second attack by the Persian forces is not depicted in this drama -- that last run on top of the futile, 280-mile round trip to Sparta, cost him his life. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Although this uninspired Italian adventure film is loosely based on Leo Tolstoy's tale about a 19th-century clash between Czarist Russia and several ethnic groups in the Caucasus, Tolstoy's original talent is buried. Ponderous and quickly put together, the story stars Steve Reeves as the muscular hero known as the "White Warrior" who leads the defence against the Russians. ("White" in this case refers to his warrior's garb.) His defence strategy would be an easier task if there were not political intrigue and romantic hurdles to overcome within his own camp, obstacles which provide grist for the narrative mill. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Heralding a decade of Italian-made sword-and-sandal films, Hercules -- as it's been known in the United States since its 1959 release -- draws most of its plot from the legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece. Hercules, the half-immortal son of Jupiter (or Zeus) rescues Iole, the daughter of Pelias, the king of Jolco, when the horses pulling her chariot run wild. Returning her to the court, he is engaged by Pelias to train his vain, arrogant son in the use of arms, that he may one day become a warrior king. Pelias' hold on power is very uncertain, owing to the way he became king -- his brother, the previous monarch, was murdered by persons unknown in the palace -- and he looks to leave a dynasty. The prince is later killed through his own foolishness, however, and the blame falls on Hercules. In order to win back the grieving heart of Iole, Hercules surrenders his immortality and manages to triumph in a savage test of his strength against the Cretan Bull. One day, a stranger arrives in Jolco claiming to be Jason, Pelias' nephew, and son of the murdered king -- and the rightful king. To prove his claim, he vows to sail to the ends of the Earth and reclaim the Golden Fleece, the symbol of rightful rule in Jolco, which was stolen on the night that his father was murdered. A crew is assembled that includes various legendary figures out of Greek mythology, with Hercules at the head of the list. They survive encounters with sea storms and a predatory race of women, the machinations of a traitor in their ranks, and Pelias' treachery, and Jason slays the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece. On their return, however, the Fleece is stolen and Hercules is imprisoned. Jason and his men are surrounded by Pelias' soldiers and a battle ensues. Iole frees Hercules, who comes to the aid of Jason and restores him to the throne that's rightfully his. This battle features one of the best action sequences in the film as Hercules, his wrists still in the shackles and chains that bound him in Pelias' dungeon, first kills the man who murdered the old king and then, faced with mounted cavalry charging him on the steps of the palace, pulls down the pillars supporting the facade and wipes out the cavalry. Pelias, unable to contain his own guilt, commits suicide and Iole, seeing the truth about her father, goes to Hercules and accepts him as her husband. Ray Harryhausen's Jason and the Argonauts, made six years later, told the same story with far superior effects and a less conclusive ending, but Hercules is a fun movie in its own right, and Steve Reeves cuts a stunning figure, even if his voice is dubbed. Curiously, there are two different dubbed versions of Hercules in circulation, one of which (the one that was on television in the early '60s, and was on the VidAmerica videocassette) features a simpler range of English dialogue that works better. The other version occasionally uses more florrid language (and appeared on the Image Entertainment letterboxed laserdisc), which doesn't really resonate well. The giveaway comes in the scene where Hercules prays to Jupiter at the temple, surrendering his powers. The simpler, better track has the echoed voice come back "the Cretan Bull awaits." ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Jail Bait was the place where Edward D. Wood Jr.'s career as a director entered the mainstream. Having exposed the world of transvestism in Glen or Glenda, he now turned to less ambitious fare in an effort at commercial success. Loosely patterned after the television series Dragnet, Jail Bait tells the story of Don Gregor (Clancey Malone), the spoiled, arrogant son of a successful plastic surgeon (Herbert Rawlinson), who is out for some kicks and excitement and hooks up with Vic Brady (Timothy Farrell), a career criminal. Opening with Don's arrest for illegal possession of a pistol, the film tracks his interaction with a pair of detectives (Lyle Talbot, Steve Reeves); his deceiving of his sister (Dolores Fuller) and his father; the robbery that goes wrong and leads him to murder an ex-cop; and his attempt to go straight, which gets him killed. That action, and Brady's attempt to force Dr. Gregor to alter his face, leads to a bizarre revenge that makes up the final 15 minutes of the movie. Little of this plot is unfolded skillfully -- Wood was already out of his depth in directing actors -- but having access to Howco's finances (meager as they were) and facilities gives Jail Bait a slightly smoother, less emaciated look than most of Wood's later movies. Coupled with the fact that he was trying to do a straight crime film, and the resulting restraint he showed in the writing, Jail Bait can just about "pass" as a normal, albeit very low-budget film, although, as with all of Wood's movies, there is still an unintended laugh every minute or so. And just to show how close to the edge Wood was working even at the outset of his career, in terms of using marginal talent, neophyte performers, and one-time successful actors, Bela Lugosi was not the first leading actor in a Wood movie to die during production -- that distinction went to Herbert Rawlinson, who played Dr. Gregor here. The former silent-era leading man reportedly died the night after he finished shooting his role in Jail Bait. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide