Kirpianuscus
it has the virtues and the sins of the genre. and Victor Mature. if you do not like the stories of Sandals and Fights, you have a lot of critics against it. a fact far to be fair because not the historical accuracy or the realism of battle scenes are the purpose but a form of entertainment, giving a nice - but not credible love story- and few moral virtues in the right package. so, it is not real easy to ignore its charm, naive in many scenes, the good intentions, the effort of Gabriele Ferzetti to do a reasonable Roman senator portrait and Rita Gam, not the most inspired Sylvia but looking for the decent way to propose a credible character. so, a nice film. predictable but far to be bad.
Blueghost
I don't know who the hell shot this, but I suppose I could glance at the credits and lay blame on the culprits, but since I'm lazy and irritated right now I'll just skip the formality and say that Victor Mature probably fired his agent several times over after being booked for this gig.He is quite literally the only competent person thesping his role, all the while other actors are stiff, comical, and otherwise just plain unconvincing. But like I implied in my first paragraph, it's not even the acting (however bad by the supporting cast) that's the issue: It's the cinematography: It's the direction and shot set ups: It's poor scheduling of the extras so the most can be gotten out of them shot wise. It's everything from the awful costumes to the lack of historical accuracy, to the extreme lack of consistent production values.The battle scenes are so poorly staged that you wonder who the hell was in charge of this thing. The acting, as mentioned, by all other than the lead (Mature) is some of the worst I've seen for a feature film. It's that bad.Avoid this thing.
the_bernie
This makes a good addition to the Victor Mature section of your film library. But I was mostly disappointed in just about all the aspects. First the music in the background did not match the situation. Then the movie starts in the middle of Hannibal's life as he started over the mountains if you do not know the history then you will be lost thru the movie. The dubbed voices reminded me of the voices in "Fractured Fairy tales." The were all sort of squeaky and of course as in the tradition of dubbed Italian movies did not match the speech timing. The one exception was Victor he would show the right or left profile and read his likes perfectly. I don't know how he kept a straight face. By the way he was 45 at this time. After he makes it over the mountains it becomes a love story between Hannibal and Sylvia the niece of the Roman determined to do Hannibal in. Even Hannibal's men think they are in trouble because Hannibal is gaw gaw over a Roman girl. Here uncle thinks she is a traitor but still loves her like a daughter.A few wars with some so so elephant scenes and a lot of obviously fake blood. Hannibal's ex turns up and Sylvia runs off. Will Hannibal and Sylvia ever get their lives together? Who wins the war? Why did they stop the story so abruptly?
ragosaal
I've red a lot about this figure and I got to admire it; I think he was in the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander when it comes to ancient history's generals. The involving tactic he used at Cannae is still studied in Military Academies around the world. He was an extremely clever man most educated for his time and he loved his country. The Crossing of the Alps back in 200 B.C. with an army and 30 war elephants can only be qualified as epic and a true highlight in Military history.The guy sure deserved a better try in films. Italians were never good at making epic spectacular films, but Americans did some very good products and its a pity they were never interested in Hannibal.Edgar Ulmer's film is slow, boring and irrelevant. It starts with the crossing of the Alps and ends after Cannae; that period was precisely Hannibal's most glorious when he moved through Italy (Rome's dominions back then) at will defeating the legions four times and retiring without ever being defeated. The movie doesn't transmit at all the real significance of such a quest against the most powerful nation of the ancient world in its own soil.Victor Mature (Hannibal) was the master of overacting and he proofs it in this picture once more moving around with his usual 60's greasy hairdo. The rest of the cast is average or below average. The battles are not very realistic and the elephants that were used as today's tanks don't even look dangerous (even if you pass over that they were Indian elephants instead of African).Don't waste your time on this one. The great general deserves a lot more and he sure gave a lot of material for a good script.
AD
