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How sad is this?

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Minus the beard and the voice that came from the large intestine., Steve Reeves is cast in this film as a Roman centurion and highly regarded aide to Julius Caesar. Yet because of an amulet he wears he's discovered to be the son of the legendary Spartacus. It helps to understand the film if you've seen the Kirk Douglas classic Spartacus. If you remember the end the widow of Spartacus Jean Simmons is rushed out of Rome and out of the reach of Crassus. Presumably the kid had a good Roman upbringing and now has a career in the Roman Legion. He's come to the attention of Julius Caesar in a good way.Which is why he's sent on a mission to Crassus who's guarding the Empire out in the East and getting richer and richer on plunder. This is where Steve Reeves discovers his real roots, kind of like the Charlton Heston as Moses discovered his roots in The Ten Commandments.Reeves is all in sympathy with the people rebelling against Crassus and like in The Desert Song the Roman Centurion and establishment figure becomes a Red Shadow like leader. Good he could be ridding Julius Caesar of a rival figure in his quest for power, bad he is rebelling against Rome. What's a dictator to do?Although The Slave blends elements of far better films in it, it's an all right piece of peplum product. Reeves has a decent speaking voice on his own for this film. And those pecs and abs are still outstanding.

Top-notch production values highlight this expensive-looking peplum yarn, starring genre titan Steve Reeves in one of his typically muscular and macho leading roles. The film is crisp and colourful throughout, making use of some spectacular desert locations and even a location shot at the Sphinx, which, if faked, has to be one of the best pieces of back projection work ever. We get towering cliffs, open seas, an ancient tomb, arid deserts, and plenty more interesting landscapes over which the action plays out. On top of this there's a stirring score with one of the best themes I've heard in a peplum film which really adds to the tons of action we have displayed on screen.The plot is literate and interesting, not to mention unusual, as it depicts the son of Spartacus continuing his father's fight to free the slaves of Roman whilst at the same time masquerading as a loyal Roman soldier. There are lots of battles, hand-to-hand combat, and heroic acts, as Reeves frees men being crucified in a pool from drowning, causing huge lumps of rock to crash down on attacking soldiers. Men are chucked in acid baths and left to burn, slaves are whipped and tortured by their cruel captors, and all manner of incident and court intrigue highlight what is a superior movie for the genre.Steve Reeves puts in what is one of his best performances as the stern, heroic lead, not over the top muscular here but still looking like a Greek God when he runs around in his shiny silver helmet and rights wrongs against the oppressed in some well-handled and usually exciting scenes of battle and action. The supporting cast, which includes genre regular Gianna Maria Canale, is a good mix with some Italian beauties thrown in for love interest like an attractive slave girl and lots of varied characters to keep things alive. SON OF SPARTACUS is a good example of the peplum genre at its most mainstream and intelligent, occasionally melancholic and moving but always well-paced, and an enjoyable experience to boot.

By 1970 Son of Spartacus (now out on DVD) found itself relegated to Saturday morning matinées, which is hardly surprising since Steve Reeves here seems to be getting twice as much combat duty as in most of the other Italian epics. So much so, one could hardly miss the kiddies re-enacting his many sword fights on the way home. Grown-ups too had something to admire, especially the eye-catching Ombretta Colli who conveniently gets shipwrecked with Reeves on a beach with her costume cut to shreds. This might prove an embarrassment to Miss Colli in later years when she went into Italian politics, no doubt hoping her voters would not remember her cheesecake days.However, it is film music fans who have most to cheer, with a score derived from no less than three of the top Italian film composers. While Son of Spartacus was being filmed in Egypt during March and April of 1962, veteran maestro Carlo Innocenzi sadly died (on March 24). His stirring main title can still be heard in the M-G-M release, and it's an impressive full orchestral version of the slow execution march for Princess Elea in Goliath Against the Giants (1961). For the opening scenes M-G-M simply recycle Innocenzi's battle music from Goliath Against the Giants, but the opening narration is accompanied by the lovely "Glauco e Antonino" track from Lavagnino's Last Days of Pompeii (1959). For the rest of the score we get a mixture of new music by Piero Piccioni (a haunting desert tune and a rousing finale march when Reeves ultimately triumphs), plus some prior Piccioni material from Duel of the Titans (1961). The Italian language version (also available on DVD) is scored by Piccioni throughout, with a different main title adapted from "Amulio" in Duel of the Titans. Piccioni's entire score, including some unused cues, can be enjoyed on a CD thanks to those dedicated vault raiders at Digitmovies

That "Il figlio di Spartacus" is one of the better sword'n'sandal flicks of the main period (1958-64) is basically due to two aspects: a fluent storyline and original sets in Egypt.Writers Adriano Bolzoni, Bruno Corbucci and Giovanni Grimaldi (plus perhaps director Sergio Corbucci) have scripted a plot that continues the story of Spartacus where Stanley Kubrick left off in 1960 in his Hollywood production with Kirk Douglas. While Kubrick certainly stuck to the historical facts, the follow-up is complete fiction. Tough daredevil Douglas is replaced by smart bodybuilder Steve Reeves as his son, although this was not the worst choice. Reeves, the original Hercules performer of 1958, does quite well in the rôle of Randus, a Roman centurio (this seems to be considered as the highest military rank in "peplums"!), who is confronted with the fact that he seems to be the son of the legendary slave leader, Spartacus, who had once been smashed and crucified by the Roman consul, Crassus. Reeves' good looks distinguish him from Douglas very remarkably, but there's his Germanic combatant Verus (Franco Balducci), who is styled like Douglas two years ealier.They needed to change history to a considerable extent (the story takes place in 48 B.C. when the real Crassus was already dead for five years) so that the fictive Randus could be 23 (Reeves was 36 by then) and Caesar could be involved. Note that the Sphinx has already lost its nose (which it did only 1850 years later) while serving as a likeable background to a talk between Caesar (Ivo Garrani), his adjutant Verulus (Renato Baldini, who has almost nothing to say), and Randus. Choosing the Egyptian landscape, including desert, oases and the pyramids of Gizeh, for the outdoor scenes adds greatly to the picture's atmosphere.Corbucci manages to handle the camera positions and angles very well, almost experimentally for a production like this. Director of photography was Enzo Barboni, the later standard director of the Terence Hill/Bud Spencer movies. There is a foreshadowing of the spaghetti westerns not only in the techniques, but also with a surprisingly high level of brutality as depicted by Corbucci.The story's main idea has Randus in the dilemma of being a Roman officer on the one hand and having the experience of being enslaved on the other. Only in this situation, he feels into the slaves' minds and puts himself at the head of the revolt against Crassus. The rest is a bit stealing from the "Zorro" idea, including the "S" (for Spartacus) mark. As Western European ideology would have it (we're at the climax of American-Russian confrontation) before a revolutionary attitude became fashionable in Italo westerns, Randus fights for freedom (from slavery), not for redistribution of capital.Gianna Maria Canale, leading actress of many a peplum since the earlier days (playing the title rôle in "Teodora", among others), is fine as Crassus' love interest. But Claudio Gora can give all he can as the terrible Crassus, right down to an exaggerated paranoid Nero-like figure.It's worth while, anyway.