The Colossus of Rhodes

...there was the movie that probably should not have been. It's not THAT bad, it's just surprising to see the director is Sergio Leone. But we all have to start somewhere don't we? And Leone started with this sword-and-sandals epic.

In the year 280 BC, Rhodes is a rich and powerful seaport island nation. King Serse (Roberto Camardiel) has just unveiled the Colossus, a massive metal statue of the god Apollo that stands over the port entrance. Greek hero Dario (Rory Calhoun) is in town for the festivities when he's approached by Peliocles (Georges Marchal) to join in a slave uprising against the Rhodesian oppressors. Dario is reluctant until he learns that the Phoenicians are plotting to overthrow the king and take the city's treasures.

This handsome production strives more for Ben-Hur or Spartacus style epic grandeur than Hercules Unchained B-movie pablum. Calhoun is a very dubious casting choice as the hero, and the French star Marchal is a more suitable lead. The costumes are nice and colorful, and the sets are very impressive, especially the Temple of Baal. At 127 minutes, this goes on about a half hour too long. However, there are some good action scenes, including an extended gladiator arena sequence. Unfortunately, a guy in a gorilla suit glimpsed briefly near the beginning never returns. This was the first credited directing job from spaghetti western maestro Sergio Leone, but his skill was not readily evident from this effort. Still, there's enough spectacle to keep this from being a complete waste of time.

Warner Brothers actually restored this and put this one on DVD, with commentary even. And yet they never got around to doing the same for Showboat. The speed in technology changes - DVD to Blu, physical to streaming, and throw in the Great Recession of 2008, and you see what seems like some strange choices by the studios. This one is often on Turner Classic Movies since Warner Bros. owns the rights. It is probably worth a watch for the novelty of it all.

In "Airplane," when Captain Oveur asks young Joey, "Do you like gladiator movies?" he is slyly and salaciously referring to films like "The Colossus of Rhodes." While technically not a gladiator movie, Sergio Leone's directorial debut is rife with scantily clad men whose rippling muscles and impeccable abs are fully exposed while they wrestle with each other or undergo whippings, torture, and bondage. The national pastime of Rhodes must have been doing crunches and lifting weights, because even the mature men have flat tight stomachs and bulging biceps. Meanwhile, the women, while lovely of face, remain chastely clothed and relegated to the sidelines. The homo-erotic visuals of this tale of ancient Rhodes call into question the film's intended audience. Were there enough closeted gays in the early 1960's to make a success of mediocre movies such as this?

Despite some good action sequences that hint at Leone's directorial talents, the film's dialog is stilted, the special effects dated, and the performances generally wooden. In desperate need of judicious editing, the film drags on far too long, and the plot sags in the middle. American actor, Rory Calhoun, a fading western hero who was obviously hired only for his name, wanders through the proceedings like a stranger in a strange land in more ways than one. Portraying the Greek Darios as an American on holiday, Calhoun remains nonplussed in the face of death, torture, and the lures of beautiful women. Decidedly less buff than his Italian counterparts, Calhoun nevertheless overwhelms men whose physical strength obviously exceeds that of his own lean build. Perhaps his attire gave him self-confidence. The stylish mini-togas with colorful scarves thrown over one shoulder and white, laced boots to the mid-calf make Calhoun resemble Captain Marvel more than an ancient warrior.

When viewers tire of Calhoun's costume changes and the sight of bare male flesh, they can amuse themselves watching the actors' mouths move without once matching the words that they supposedly utter. In the scenes between Calhoun and Lea Massari as Diala, there is little doubt that neither performer knows what the other is saying. Calhoun recites his lines in English while Massari recites hers in Italian, which was later ineptly dubbed. However, even Italian sandal epics can be entertaining, and "Colossus" is no exception. If expectations are kept low or the viewer is an undying fan of Rory Calhoun, then "Colossus" provides some camp moments and decent action in addition to its legions of male Italian bodies.

I suspect it's curiosity that brought most of us reviewers to "The Colossus of Rhodes", an Italian swords-and-sandals blockbuster set in the Greek antique world and whose most prestigious name on the credits belongs to the director, Sergio Leone. His thunder isn't even stolen by his no-less legendary partner in film: the late Maestro Ennio Morricone. I confess it, if it wasn't for the film's reputation as the first directed movie from Sergio Leone, chances are it wouldn't have made it even in my Top 500 to-watch list.

And so like many fans, I was wondering how the film looked, how the hyperbolic style of Leone and his infatuation with detached and outcast characters would translate into a peplum? Yes, the film about one of the wonders of the Antique world started with a personal wonder. And so, maybe distracted by years of impregnation with Leone style, I kept looking at the film like an oddity, a canvas where I could spot here and there one or two trademarks from the Maestro. And I was so focused on that that I perhaps forgot to watch the film.

The distraction was so grand that I don't even feel entitled to review the film properly. I guess what I can say is that there is something in Rory Calhoun's impersonation of the Greek Darios that emerged from the usual heroic archetypes, here's a womanizer who gets itself caught in several plots converging toward the same goal, which is the destruction of the local tyrants. A Clint Eastwood he ain't but there is something in this colorful mosaic of talking and fighting and courting scenes that can't allow such characters to express themselves. As I noticed after watching "The Robe", peplums are movies designed for the spectacular and the epic, and it is a credit to the better ones to allow personalities to emerge.

Leone who was no stranger to that genre as he assisted Wyler in "Ben-Hur" and took part to the "Last Days of Pompei" had the instinct for such movies and "Colossus" features some remarkable sequences and set-designs, starting with the recreation of the big statue but something was missing. Leone's camera work has always been known to turn even the ugliest or most remote locations into subjects of eye-catching quality such as Goya paintings, his films portrayed the least appealing matters with great operatic lyricism, a capability to transcend the lowest instincts of humanity and turn them into things of epic aesthetic scales rather than morales. The Dollars trilogy was about greed or manipulation, ugly traits, the "Once Upon" trilogy about people incapable to cope with their time and also betrayal.

Great movies can be defined into simpler words and the simpler they are, the more they allow their directors to fully express their talent. "Colossus of Rhodes" has such a convoluted plot and historical mishmach doubled with the usual devotion to heroism as a value that it's remotely impossible to come up with anything fresh and new. At least, "Ben-Hur" had a universal story to tell, both "Spartacus" and "Quo Vadis" had Peter Ustinov. "Colossus of Rhodes" lacks colorful characters that could have humanized it. It's spectacular all right, the earthquake sequence is nothing short but brilliant but the film strikes as big chunk of antic splendor displayed only as a feast to the eyes, a "movie with gladiators" like another reviewer point it out, mentioning the infamous line from "Airplane!".

I don't feel like going further, this review isn't the highlight of my work either, but "Colossus" is more of a film you 'check' rather than watch, I checked so I could say that I saw all Leone's movies, Leone resurrected the Western genre and found the true arena of his colossal talent there and it had to to go through that step, one little step before the giant leap. Anyway, it was an Interesting watch, but legacy-wise, closer to the 'Manneken-pis' than the Colossus...

Notable now mainly as an early work by Sergio Leone, this ambitious entry in the sword-and-sandal genre has the kind of long, detailed story-line rarely seen in productions of this sort, and it's unencumbered by the religious "piety" which clings to, say, "The Revolt of the Slaves." If anything, "Colossus" may be a tad too ambitious, since the second half of its two-hours-plus running time could use a bit of trimming.

Worth noting are the scenes involving the head of the giant statue which is of hollow construction. Watching Rory Calhoun climbing out the ear of the statue and then engaging in a sword fight on the statue's shoulder is one of those moments for which movies were invented. (Yes, I said Rory Calhoun, and he's as out of place here as you might imagine. Stephen Boyd or John Derek, Leone's original choice, would have done better jobs.)

Also worth noting is the movie's apparent motto of: "Shirts off, chains on." Rarely have so many muscular men been subjected to such a variety of bondage and torture, beginning with the pre-title sequence in which a bare-chested, spreadeagled Georges Marchal, (who was born for this kind of role,) is rescued from a prison-camp. Later, he's placed inside a metal bell which is repeatedly struck with a hammer while two of his colleagues -- stretched out on horizontal slabs -- have caustic fluids dripped onto their bare torsos. And then there are the prisoners in the arena who are dragged behind chariots or suspended by their wrists over a lion-pit. (About the only other movie which has such a high quotient of men writhing in pain in MGM's 1954 "Prisoner of War.")

Today's special effects could make the Colossus and its eventual fate even more impressive, but alas, movies such as this just aren't made anymore.

Word was that director Sergio Leone who stepped in during 1959 and took over directing "The Last Days of Pompeii" with Steve (Mr. Hercules, himself) Reeves wanted to make a sword and sandal film...at that time Italy was churning out the musclebulgers by the dozens.....Steve Reeves with that physique carved from granite was the king of these musclebulgers.....and to a lesser degree by another musclebulger named Mark Forrest. Leone employed all the members of "Last Days of Pompeii" he could hire....the one exception was he wanted Steve Reeves with that bulging physique to star but Reeves was committed to making "The Giant of Marathon" and "The Great White Warrior" and was not available.....How did I get this info??? I knew a friend of Reeves who talked to him and how Leone liked him and offered him the role in Colossus...... Rumor was a rather handsome but undernourished John Derek was the choice for Dario in the lead role...but a feud developed between Leone and Calhoun who was making another costume "epic" nearby in Italy was suddenly available. Calhoun had made his reputation during the 50s making westerns and was hired......anyhow, story is a typical Italian sword and sandal epic of evil rulers, mob scenes, tortures with whips and chains and a few lovely women to look at.....main story line concerns a giant erected statue called the Colossus which stands over the entrance of the harbor to the island of Rhodes in 280 BC. The Colossus drops oodles of fire and brimstone from it's bottom on any invading ships and invaders who try and enter unwelcome...... Calhoun in leading role as Dario looks out of place....he has that greased up hair do from the 50s he wore and those white shiny boot sandals he had on...ugh!!!! Lea Massari his off and on again love interest is very wooden with a large skin blemish right in the middle of her forehead!!! Where was the make up department????? Massari has all the charm of a wooden box and little to no sex appeal.....in most sword and sandal movies the women are skimpily dressed to the extreme to attract the male audience.....in Colossus the women are covered with full length togas and long dresses....go figure.....Mylene Demengeot who co starred with Steve Reeves in "Giant of Marathon" would have been a better female leading lady for this film....anyhow....there are still legions of sword and sandal fans out there who remembers all those gladiator films....the genre was resuscitated briefly in Russell Crowe's 2000 film "Gladiator".....word was the director wanted Steve Reeves to come out of retirement and play a role but Reeves was in declining health at the time and could not commit....so sad to see the king of these S&S films decline the role......only real criticism is this film is about 20 minutes or so too long coming in at 2 hrs and 15 minutes.......still not bad to see for sword and sandal fans.