Watch The Giant of Metropolis For Free

Wow, this is a REALLY bad movie!

Very Cool!!!

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

On paper, this epic 60s sci-fi peplum sounds really cool: it's got astonishing set design, Bava-style art direction, outlandish costumes and weaponry, an insane tyrant, a doomed empire, beautiful women in distress, and strongman Gordon Mitchell battling it out with numerous armed guards, a massive hairy troglodyte, and five flesh eating pygmies.In actuality, it is far from impressive...Although the film looks great at times, with particularly good use of light and shadow (and a legendary amount of dry ice), it is severely hampered by a dreary, repetitive script, terrible dubbing and poor performances: star Mitchell's physique might have made him perfect for the genre, but he clearly spent much more time developing his pectorals than his acting skills.Speaking of magnificent chests, The Giant of Metropolis does at least benefit from the presence of drop dead gorgeous Euro-babes Bella Cortez and Liana Orfei as Princess Mecede and Queen Texen, both of whom have va-va-voom to spare; neither woman seems to be a particularly good actress, but when they're built like that, who cares?

As we are all eager to see original genre movies, like the Ellison post—apocalyptic yarn, or other mind—bending, knockout, mind—blowing things, it's reassuring to be aware that the cinema will go on supplying such curiosities. But was Scarpelli successful in his attempt to emulate Lang? Despite its clumsiness, the Italian 'Metropolis', and the ambitious send—up should be acknowledged, is, in intention, a weirdly original movie, a sort of _proto—steam-punk—what if people living 200 centuries before the CE, or 180 centuries before the Jewish Patriarchs, would of used advanced technologies, under the command of a truly nasty ruler who reduced his people to zombies, beings without will, wandering through the barren cityscape of that smashing tyranny; yet the results are not only unconvincing, but uselessly silly and childish. In fact, perhaps kids might like it.Beware a current synopsis—IL GIGANTE … is not about Metropolis being … sinful—whence such an idea? The citizens are bland sheep; it's the king who proves himself guilty of the latter—day sin of Frankenstein and Jekyll—and he's also quite lustful, though, of course, unable of healthy romance. Nor is Scarpelli's tiny budget futurist fairy tale about … godlessness; these Conan undertones are abruptly lacking. There's never a word about religion—in a bleak cityscape where dizzying technologies and ray—weaponry are put to serve the king's plans—which, however, don't make much sense to begin with.I mean, a bit of intelligence would of sufficed to spare us from many of the goofs, and some good sense could of supplied, at least partly, for the shortages of the budget, and the nonchalant, almost insulting _cluelessness of the cast; even if he had to work on a tiny budget, and with a bunch of retards, the director and his handful of scriptwriters could of spared us so much of what's unintentionally laughable.The actresses are ugly (in fact, the whole cast is decidedly unlikable), the weapons—mindlessly bizarre, and the fight scenes—largely goofy. Otherwise, any of the Italian genre movies—Westerns, Peplums, Sci—Fi, horror, comedies, crime thrillers, erotica, etc.—is better than any episode of 'S. Trek'; I couldn't help comparing IL GIGANTE … to the S. Trek, and even this one is certainly better, more thrilling and exciting.A clan of dissidents traveling towards Metropolis to challenge, one knows not how, the limitless authority of the king (and his clique of irresponsible scientists)—maybe merely to warn and admonish him of the envisioned consequences of his senseless behavior, become a threat to the citizen's existence as such, let alone their minds …—is decimated, except for one, obviously stronger than his kinsmen, who survives in that ruthless world, despite the harshness and hopelessness. This survivor is arrested, brought to the king, than pushed to fight—first, a goofy strongman—than, some murderous pygmies—who defeat him. The political prophet is tortured with rays. Otherwise, we don't get to see many gadgets from that 20 thousands yrs old civilization …. Mercilessly and minutely tortured by the king, with that creepy technology, the chained prophet is helped to escape by the Queen, and counseled, against his own misgivings—after all, what could a redneck, albeit a muscle-man, do, against all those fancy rays?--, to launch a guerrilla war. The muscle-man becomes a one—man—army, almost a Rambo of sorts; meantime, natural disasters begin to occur. The tiny budget makes it necessary that they are rather recounted, told, than shown.Who's the protagonist chosen by the director when he set himself to outdo Lang? This survivor is a prophet, an ethical one, as Metropolis' world is devoid of any religion, there is not a word about religion and godlessness, and there are, anyway, much too few presumably thinking characters—the royal clique, and the few rebels; and Stafford tells us that Metropolis was in the extremely distant past—not in the future.Be that as it may, the righteous prophet uses, one evening, a weapon resembling either hooks, or crooked branches; other times, he fights with a chain, or some huge and flattened, bi—dimensional spoon, that could also remind of a flattened bone. So, he becomes a guerrilla fighter, and is even joined, sadly only once, by a girl—something meant to puzzle us as well, as her identity is only later revealed.But the sets are direly uninspired, as is the presumably erotic dance that precedes the nuptial encounters. The movie is _charmless and discouragingly trite.Mitchell didn't look like Heston (who, by the way, never looked better than in the blockbuster EARTHQUAKE); he looked like a thug. But as Obro (whatever), he looked, when tortured, genuinely distressed and scared, hopeless and downtrodden—in a eerie way; we owe this fact, to his committed, wholehearted acting. And I mean it in a good way; he's not a detached, aloof by—passer. And even in the otherwise unremarkable clashes with the blackguards, Mitchell seems committed and on to something. I said all the performers in this movie are butt—ugly, indiscriminately; and none of them is, of course, uglier than the lead—the muscle-man's is the leading ugliness, something entirely unpleasant, even annoying. Mitchell had a brutish ugliness that reminds of York, Palance, Bronson, and other butt—faces of the silver screen.(Anyway, the European directors of genre movies seemed eager to shot such ugly faces. It became their sense of the bizarre and the insidiously menacing.) Some of the sets have a certain almost Aztec touch; and there is a scene uncannily forecasting the STAR WARS—the king faced by his dead father's specter, and talk about a force, all—pervading. Anyway, the unrepentant king refuses to face the ecological implications of his disruptive policies.This is a kids' movie. I liked the last 30' of it. Eventually, it climaxes as a disaster movie—Atlantis, Rhodos, Pompeii …. Yet the final frame is hopeful—the strongman and the princess, embraced in the sunshine, after the catastrophe has ended.Mitchell, as I said, contributes a hearty, albeit wholly clueless, performance.

Along with THE FURY OF ACHILLES (1962), with which I should re-acquaint myself presently, this is perhaps muscle-bound and pug-ugly Gordon Mitchell's finest hour. The film is an intriguing mix of peplum and sci-fi: I purposefully watched it and the similar (and contemporaneous) L'ATLANTIDE on consecutive days but, in the long run, this is the one to blend the two more successfully (or, if you like, outrageously) by way of imaginative (if clearly cheap i.e. mostly model and matte shots!) and atmospherically-lit sets a' la the work of Mario Bava, weird (and curiously baggy) costumes, and even odd-shaped (to say nothing of unwieldy) weaponry; incidentally, in the opening text scroll, we are told that Metropolis is just another name for Atlantis! The name of the (futuristic) city involved, then, obviously evokes Fritz Lang's seminal masterwork from 1927 and this even does it outright homage by having Metropolis eventually submerged in water (supposedly the fate of the real 'Lost Continent').Anyway, Mitchell arrives on the scene, ostensibly in search of a promised land, with a whole entourage – but, in the space of five minutes, his father has kicked the bucket of old age and exhaustion, the leader of an accompanying faction opts to go his own way, and the hero's two brothers have a literal meltdown due to the radioactive atmosphere surrounding Metropolis! His own constitution elicits fear and doubt in the mad ruler of the city: the latter is engaged in transplanting the brain of an ancient sage (whom he constantly visits for advise, so much for his supposed superiority!) into his own child-son; he has an elder daughter (who occasionally gratifies him with a sexy exotic dance!) and, following the mysterious death of his wife, married a woman several years his junior (whom he anxiously – and authoritatively – paws despite being obviously hated by her!). As for his subjects, these are a mass of anonymous zombies who invariably rally in the square opposite the palace to cheer or curse as the case may be (but with arms enthusiastically outstretched on both occasions!) – when he decides to revive a former lieutenant of his, however, he is repaid by the latter's conspiring with Mitchell et al to thwart his evil plans! To get back to the hero, he is imprisoned (via a temperature-altering beam of light, which has him make funny faces whilst appearing to be choking!) and forced into shows-of-strength with a variety of mutant monsters: a giant, which he fells with the over-sized skeletal jaw of some unidentified animal, and a horde of cannibalistic pygmies! Eventually, he meets and conquers – in the romantic sense, naturally – the King's female offspring (she pines for the outside world when shown furtive glimpses of it)…while her step-mom succumbs to suicide by poison rather than reveal the escaped Mitchell's whereabouts. To make matters worse for the King, Metropolis is apparently under constant threat from the elements, specifically Equatorial disorder (which he has scientists continually observe through a periscope and insistently urges them to come up with a solution to the imminent catastrophe!)…and, when one had thought his spirits could not sink any lower, he is haunted by his father's ghost (clearly disapproving of his toying with the Laws of Nature)! Umberto Scarpelli stepped infrequently in the director's chair (THE GIANT OF METROPOLIS –reasonably engaging but invincibly juvenile such as it is – was the last of only 5, for 3 of which he actually shared the credit with somebody else!); incidentally, the producer/co-writer of the film under review was Emimmo Salvi, who would himself graduate to helming a variety of low-brow "Euro-Cult" fare and worked 6 times in all with the star – a viewing of one of these, THE TREASURE OF THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1965), followed the very next day...

Few movies can truthfully be called "unique," but this comes close. It's a bizarre hybrid, set in Atlantis in 20,000 B.C., which combines the "Hercules" genre with the kind of science-fiction motifs found in Flash Gordon serials. True, the plot is the usual strongman-vs-the-evil-tyrant affair, but the "look" and "atmosphere" surrounding this plot make for striking viewing and have that touch of stylized madness found in only a handful of movies. (Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and David Lynch's "Dune" are some of the few comparable efforts which spring to mind.) Adding to the almost-hypnotic effect is a somber, restrained, at times almost atonal music score. Gordon Mitchell spends the entire movie in one of those "Hercules" loincloths and one never tires of looking at his bare torso which is often contorted into a variety of "bondage" positions. Only in the final cataclysm do the proceedings become routine but for the most part this movie is one of the cinema's most eccentric flights of imagination.