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I predoni della steppa (1964)
Kirk Morris with bleached hair and a great death scene from Moira Orfei
Sandar Khan (Kirk Morris) and his crew kidnap Princess Samira from an evil empire as they want a ransom from her father the King. After an ambush in a forest by the King's soldiers, every one of Sandar Khan's men (except his friend Kublai) are killed (via quick-lime and water). Sandar Khan tells his villagers to burn everything and move out, which they do and hide in a cave from the Tartars. Sandar Khan gets a bit infatuated with Samira, which makes the brunette Malina (Moira Orfei) jealous. Samira nurses a sick child and Sandar Khan snogs her as a thank you - Malina sees this and is furious, "you shameless hussy" she calls her before trying to whip her ass. Sandar Khan breaks up the fight (shame) and throws poor Malina out of the camp for being a 'contemptible wretch'. The new lovers decide it's best if Samira goes back to her father as they want to get married...
Back with the King, Samira tells him that Sandar Khan is a good guy who wants peace and an alliance between the clans and also that she wants to marry him. He's having none of this and says she must marry Altan Khan (Daniele Vargas), a truly evil man, so she's taken to his palace. There, she has some hand-maidens who understand how unhappy she is, but prepare her for the wedding. Sandar Khan and Kublai get into the palace grounds/city via disguise...
Malina arrives (looking finer than ever) to inform Altan Khan that Sandar Khan and Kublai have arrived through the city gates, and points them out at a bar (this is done after the ubiquitous Peplum dance, you know what I mean, a female throws her legs around while dancing alluringly with a piece of silk!). Fight scene, Sandar Khan surrenders, (his friend escapes) and is taken to the palace, where he is forced to wrestle two guys to win his life. He does this but is sent to work as a slave in a mill. Meanwhile Altan Khan's army have started to wreak violence and destruction among the surrounding villages and the kingdom of Samira's father. Kublai manages to break Sandar Khan out along with the prisoners...
Altan Khan and his army break into the King's city. Sandar Khan and Kublai fight them. The king gets hit by an arrow. Kublai catches Malina and tells his posse that she was the traitor - so they fire arrows at her and she dies with three stuck in her chest (brilliant death scene!). Sandar Khan challenges Altan Khan to a duel, and before you can say Zeus they both have enormous spiked tree trunks strapped to their backs (Kirk is topless again, showing his muscles). Of course Sandar Khan wins. The king lies dying and tells our hero how sorry he is and gives him the seat of the throne (how nice). Samira and her man walk out to a joyous crowd, who are chanting "long live Sandar Khan". The End (thank goodness, I don't think I could type another Altan Khan or Sandar Khan to save my life).
What's to recommend? Well, you do get to see Kirk Morris with bleached hair, the hairdresser should have left the peroxide on longer though or at least given him a toner to stop it looking so brassy. Malina, who's played by Moira Orfei is so much better looking than the Princess, but as with all dark-haired ladies of the Peplum film, she has to die!
Che fanno i nostri supermen tra le vergini della jungla? (1970)
Totally brilliant, campy, jungle trash!
Fantastic opening credits with coloured lights and the 'Supermen' logos...
Brad Harris stars as Brad, one of the three supermen, along with Martin and Dick (a mute who 'talks' weird and makes silly faces). They have to go into the jungle to stop some pesky Russians from obtaining land rich with uranium. Martin and Dick are being held prisoners by some sheikhs (?) and are about to be put to death by spikes up their bottoms so Brad is forced to rescue them (leaving his wedding to get there), first by rocket and then by some underground vehicle with a large drill bit.
Once in the (stock footage of stampeding elephants) jungle which looks more like a forest, the men meet an old guy who has a map to the uranium and they go off together in a jeep. They stop off for a swim in a lake and meet Jungla, a queen of a tribe of white chicks in bikinis. Meanwhile the Russians meet the owners of the land and try to buy it off them with gold, they don't like that but do like their offering of party toys, and dance around madly, blowing little plastic trumpets (actually everybody in this film dances at some point). The Russians along with the tribe attack the 'Supermen', but their red suits are invincible to the bullets, spears and arrows - Jungla and co help out, which leads to a pointless cat-fight with the Russian girl losing most of her clothes!
The men then end up about to be cooked by Jungla and her tribe, Martin as a cake, Dick as soup in a large pot and Brad roasted on a fire. The death by cuisine is called off when a witch doctor announces that Jungla wants to marry Brad. Next thing the girls of the tribe are doing a campy dance number and all the men are canoodling with chosen women (Jungla wants to 'devour Brad with kisses' in her tent).
It all ends up with car chases, more fight scenes, double crosses, triple crosses and Brad dressed as a Chinese man. Absolutely brilliant, I couldn't ask for more in a film which was a mixture of super heroes, daft comedy, cave girls, rubber crocodiles and campy costumes. And (!) a superb soundtrack by Sante Romitelli.
Encuentro en el abismo (1979)
Andrés García in underpants, that's about it.
I picked this one up in a thrift shop as it had weird cover art featuring an exploding aeroplane above an ocean full of sharks fins, people over-board a ship and an odd large alien shaped hand. Anyway as the credits rolled for this Italian/Spanish co production, I noticed the music was by the (usually god-like genius) Stelvio Cipriani and the main star was Andrés García, the handsome muscle guy who starred in Tintorera. The film starts with a voice-over intro about U. F. O's and the Bermuda Triangle... Strange occurrences begin happening in the Bermuda area (will they ever learn?) as boats, ships and helicopters (yeah!) disappear into thin air after a high pitched screeching noise is heard, the sea water bubbles and a weird green light pulsates into red (very basic not so special effects).
A rich old guy's much loved daughter and her new husband (wearing possibly the smallest white hot-pants I have ever seen) experience the same fate and the old guy wants to find out what happened to them. So he hires a bloke (money no object) with a theory about the disappearances to go and search the area they went missing. He takes with him Andrés García and an old sailor who likes the whisky, an Alsation dog and some some other bland characters (divers etc.) Anyway, as they search you really expect something to happen, but sadly it never does. They search the area for what takes up nearly the entire film, dodging the occasional stock-footage shark and discovering rocks unlike any other found before. One of the divers who sports a beard gets possessed by something in the water and the dog growls at him. It really is this exciting. Eventually Andrés and the other guy discover an underground (and under sea) grotto with a huge statue like one found on Easter Island.
I won't give away the ending, because I want other people to watch the entire film (like I had to) see what the climax would be. I will say though, that silver body suits and crash helmets do not make for good space aliens with intelligent and supreme powers.
The score by Stelvio Cipriani was a lot more orchestral than I was expecting (not like the superb 'Tentacoli') and there's no suspense to speak of, but if you like the look of Andrés García, you wont be disappointed as you do get to see him in very skimpy underpants for almost the entire film.