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Powerful

Excellent adaptation.

Absolutely the worst movie.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

The monsters alone make this film worth watching. Story is fun enough and it plays out well. Costuming, sets, props nice as usual - lavish. The cinematography, directing and editing are just as tolerable as any one of the other many 1960s peplum.I enjoyed this film as much as Hercules the Invincible (1964) - in-fact, I think I like this one a little bit better than "Invincible" due to the many monsters and the darkness of some of the scenes. They are comparable films and would be a great double feature together.The film is not great but I found it enjoyable, entertaining and that is all that really counts.6.5/10

"Goliath and the Dragon" was one of two peplum films featuring Hercules (the other being "The Loves of Hercules') released in 1960, following the success of "Hercules" and its sequel both starring Steve Reeves. The original Italian title for this film is "La vendetta di Ercole" ("The Revenge of Hercules"), but U.S. distributor AIP changed the hero to Goliath for the American release, and added a stop-motion animation dragon not included in the Italian cut. Italian-American (Brooklyn-born) bodybuilder Lou Degni, billed as Mark Forest, takes over the role from Reeves. Forest starred in a dozen or so peplum films including "Maciste in the Valley of the Kings" released this same year and played Hercules again in 1964's "Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun." He is a more than passable stand-in for Reeves, impressively built if not quite as classically handsome or well-proportioned and able to pull off the macho arrogance of the character. The oddest thing about this film is the casting of American actor Broderick Crawford, with an enormous and distracting scar across his face, as Hercules's (or Goliath's ... whatever) nemesis. Crawford growls his way through the movie and generally seems like a grumpy old man. At least he gets to use his name, which neither the film nor the writers nor the lead actor nor the hero do -- co-writer Nicolo Ferrari is credited with the bizarre pseudonym Archibald Zounds Jr.! (Apologies to anyone actually named Archibald Zounds, Jr. or Sr.)The story is particularly baroque, involving forbidden romance, double-crossing courtiers, an over-large cast of characters that becomes cumbersome to keep straight, and some vague plans to defeat Hercules and conquer Thebes, but the overall motif (in keeping with the Italian title) is revenge, with Hercules at one point destroying the statue of the God of Vengeance after it falls on him -- twice! The real attraction here, though, is not the complicated plot but the dizzying array of cheesy monsters Hercules gets to fight, beginning with a sequence in the "cave of horrors" where the big man defeats a three-headed beast that is probably supposed to be Cerebus, though not identified as such (another pseudonymous indignity) and a very strange man-sized bat-like creature that at first I thought was a unique take on the dragon, but as it turns out a more conventional (though, frankly, pretty hilarious) dragon turns up later. Along the way, Hercules also defeats a giant bear-like monster and spears a centaur, who is the most convincing and strangely affecting of all the creatures that populate the film. The bat-thing and the bear-thing are clearly stuntmen in silly costumes, but the dragon (aside from the brief stop-motion sequence) is a giant puppet that Forest does a great job trying to battle convincingly. Other peplum tropes include the obligatory dancing girls and Hercules practically tearing down a city with his bare hands. Though much cheaper looking and cheesier than the two Reeves films that preceded it, this is actually pretty fun and peppy peplum entry helmed by director Vittorio Cottafavi.

For a guy who was a villain in the Bible, Goliath in Goliath And The Dragon pursues a biblical strategy in defeating the evil king, played by Broderick Crawford. His just desserts were positively biblical themselves.Goliath as played by Mark Forest is a one muscular dude who is consecrated to the pagan Gods and he performs a number of tasks for them that are keeping him from home and hearth. While he's gone Broderick Crawford has usurped the throne in his home town, but the people aren't thrilled with their new monarch. What to do, but marry the daughter of the guy he killed to get the throne to legitimize himself. But she loves Goliath's little brother and that gets the big guy all kinds of mad. Still his obligations to the various pagan deities keep interfering and he decides to revolt against them as well.There are all kinds of little ins and outs of peplum politics in Goliath And The Dragon and Goliath has to face a three headed Cerberus dog, a big flying bat, a centaur, an elephant as preliminaries before he gets to the main event with the dragon. After that in the siege against Crawford's city Goliath goes underground and knocks down the support pillars to the walls of his city. Joshua wouldn't have needed trumpets had Goliath been working for the Israelites. The walls come down and Crawford becomes history.Broderick Crawford definitely knew this film was not anything approaching All The King's Men and he overacts outrageously to get through the film. He had just finished his five year run on Highway Patrol and I can't believe this was the best his agent could do for him.

Broderick Crawford is a slimy politician in a toga and Mark Forest (bodybuilder Lou Degni) is muscleman Goliath in this kitsch epic from Italy, exploited to the max in the U.S. by American International pictures during the drive-in heydays of the late 50's and early 60's. This one's quite a potboiler, with a various assortment of cheesy monster creations (including some very brief stop-motion footage by Jim Danforth), the usual buxom babes with big Roman hairdos and, of course, the solid and stiff muscleman hero performing various feats of strength (like wrestling a bear suit and, rather impressively, genuinely warding off a real elephant!). It's all a lot of nostalgic fun and the new DVD release is a revelation in quality, bringing back the bright color and widescreen TotalScope ratio of the original theatrical presentation. The DVD is also packed with campy tributes to the whole muscleman, sword-and-sandal genre, including a gallery of trailers, shorts and even an entire second strongman feature, the truly ridiculous CONQUERER OF ATLANTIS! Get ready for a great late-night schlockfest with this package!