mark.waltz In the decades after Ulysses killed the Cyclops, his followers lead a peaceful life until a vengeful queen sets out to capture his heir. Like all evil queens in these movies, she's a brunette, and the good queen is a blonde. But there's more to the evil queen, pre-destined by fate to seek revenge, and she longs to escape her evil heritage in order to find love and redeem herself. That comes in the form of handsome Gordon Mitchell whose only goal is to prevent the infant heir from becoming hoer devours for the surviving cyclops. The evil queen's obviously over-ambitious and jealous suitor (think "Aladdin's" Jafar in a toga) stands in the way and you'll spend the film's running time looking forward to his come-uppance.Gladiator films are really comedys disguised as sword and sandal adventures. Go into these films with a razor-sharp tongue, because like midnight showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", you'll find yourself yelling sarcastic comments at the screen. That really is the only way to find fun in them as the quality is usually poor, dubbing terrible, and a predictability that some critics must have made a form critique for each of these and edited in individual comments appropriate for each film.

Woodyanders Brave and kind he-man Maciste (a winningly sincere portrayal by the brawny and cheerful Gordon Mitchell) must save both Queen Penope (fetching Vira Silenti) and her infant son from the evil clutches of the ruthless and wicked Queen Capys (a perfectly nasty turn by ravishing brunette stunner Chelo Alonso). Director Antonio Leonviola relates the eventful story at a steady pace, maintains a serious tone throughout, and stages the thrilling action scenes with a reasonable amount of vigor (stirring highlights include Maciste wrestling a lion, a fierce rough'n'tumble fight with one of Capys' hulking goons, and the tense and gripping climactic battle between Maciste and an impressively grotesque and monstrous 18-foot-tall cyclops). The cast all give admirably earnest performances, with especially nice contributions from Giotto Tempestini as helpful shepherd Aronio and Massimo Righi as the noble Efros. Carlo Innocenzi's robust, rousing score does the trick. Riccardo Pallottini's expansive widescreen cinematography offers several striking shots of the lovely verdant countryside. The campy dialogue adds plenty of extra unintentional humor to the mix while the bevy of lovely ladies supply lots of yummy eye candy (Alonso in particular is an absolute smoking hot fox!). A fun romp.

Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) If viewers can get by the crummy existing home video transfers currently available ATLAS IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS, as this is know in it's English language form, is actually a superior example of the Italian Peplum sword & sandal genre. The problem with the existing versions isn't with the film, it's that a glorious widescreen (2:35:1 Techniscope) popcorn movie has been cropped and pan/scanned down to an abysmal, color rotted 16mm fullscreen reduction print meant for television distribution back in the 1960s. There should be a Crimes Against Humanity tribunal charged with tracking down those responsible for ruining this and countless other movies like it, perhaps forcing them to watch endlessly looped repeats of those old SnackMaster infomercials as punishment. The original elements are probably long lost and like a butchered scrap of an old Michelangelo painting, this is all we have left. It's a horrible loss.But even in such a miserable state this is quite the little Hercules/Samson/Maciste style adventure, with big grinning Gordon Mitchell at his finest as another he-man wandering the ancient world and righting wrongs. This production actually had a decent budget for it's time as well, with a huge cast of extras and some genuinely clever effects sequences and strong man spectacle moments -- at one point Mitchell even rows an entire slave galley at ramming speed, by himself -- along with the requisite eye candy Veil Dance naval gazing for the dads, slave mistreatment scenes, lots of Pizza Pizza guards running around in plumed helmets, the ubiquitous moment where the hero gets to flirt with all the serving girls or share wine & grapes with the evil sexy queen who is responsible for the misdeeds that he must set to rights.What makes this one stand out is that all of that happens before Atlas, as he is called here, even squares off against a genuinely frightful looking 18 foot tall Cyclops down in it's pit for a duel to the death to save both the pretty princess and the rightful infant heir to the throne. The Cyclops rulez and for once the muscle bound hero is presented with a monster that's quite worthy of his talents. Their battle is a doozie and actually somewhat graphic for it's time. You'd really have to be a cold heartless bastard not to get a kick out of it, and as usual the clever way it was filmed puts any CGI rendered special effects sequence depicting similar events to shame.And as usual the big lummox of a hero rides off into the sunset at the end while the adoring crowds cheer his heroism & derring-do, something that quite frankly the world could use a bit more of these days. I'd encourage anyone with a love for fantasy adventure/action films to seek this baby out, and you can: It's available on one of those 50 Movie Packs called "The Warriors Collection" easily found on Amazon.com for a few dollars, featuring forty nine other movies more or less just like it, which would take you about two weeks of non-stop viewing to get through it. And people say getting snowed in sucks, I call it an opportunity for cheesy Euro man-beef fantasy indulgence with an exceptionally cool monster to boot. Ignore the crummy picture quality, pop a bucket of popcorn and enjoy!8/10

398 "Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops" has two magnificent assets and her name is Chelo Alonso. She also has gorgeous eyes. Born in Cuba, Miss Alonso was a hit at the Paris Folies Bergeres before plunging into Italian peplum movies in the late fifties. Here she plays the evil, evil, Queen Capys, who starts the movie by sending out her army to slaughter a peaceful village, and then ruthlessly searches for a cute, gurgling, tyke so she can feed him to her pet cyclops. The purpose, we are told, is to remove an ancient curse. In a stab at depth, the movie reveals that Queen Capys frets about being so evil and when not understandably admiring herself in the mirror which she carries with her at all times, muses about how much better things will be after the cyclops devours the toddler and she can relax into being just another bloodthirsty tyrant.Enter our muscular hero, Maciste, the staunch enemy of injustice and evil queens everywhere. Once Capys lays her doe eyes on his pecs, its lust at first drool, always dangerous for a wicked queen. Even an oversexed queen can not shuck her evil ways easily, and there is tension galore as she gets the hots for our hero and hits on him with a distinct lack of subtlety, all the while assuring her worried underlings that she is in fact planning to make him into a cyclopsburger.Now for the fly in the ointment. Maciste is so pure, innocent, and naive, he makes Roy Rogers look decadent. He seems oblivious to Capys' abundant charms. Oh, my, is this frustrating. In the meantime, an underling captures the toddler and heads to the island abode of the hungry cyclops. Finding a very, very, very deeply buried streak of decency, and also perhaps hoping that turning good might arouse the big fellow's slumbering libido, Capys leads Maciste to the island.As veteran viewers of these type of movies can probably predict, nothing works out for her. Capys follows Maciste into the Cyclops' cave, only to see her newly found goodness go for naught when she has to jump in front of the big lug to block a dagger thrust by her own henchman. Life can be cruel for a cruel queen.The movie dies when Capys dies in the indifferent Maciste's strong arms, although Maciste does finish off the cyclops and saves the toddler and his mother. The ending has the tyke on the throne and everyone happy a child will be governing the land. Why not? All in all, worth it if you don't expect too much, have a sense of humour, and can get off on an absurdly beautiful, evil, evil, queen.