PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*
Director Antonio Margheriti, often celebrated for his horror movies, didn't work on many peplum adventures. ANTHAR, given the irrelevant American title DEVIL OF THE DESERT AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES, is a largely ordinary example of this subgenre, though it does sport much better color photography than many such products from the subgenre's waning days.
Evil warlord Ganor is one of the more direct sword-and-sandal villains, for he and his warriors simply attack Baghdad, kill its king, and announce that they're the new bosses in town. Ganor imprisons the king's son as a possible hostage to ensure good behavior and tries to force the king's daughter Soraya (Michele "HATARI" Girardon) to marry him to cement his claim to the throne. Soraya jumps out a high window into a river that carries her away from the city.
Lean muscleman Anthar (Kirk Morris, who'd done a half dozen such movies previous to this) is fishing with his young mute friend, sometimes called "Mute," when the two spot the floating, unconscious form of Soraya. Having a hot princess fall into his lap instantly moves Anthar to revolutionary sympathies once he's heard her sad story. However, to provide the hero with an added complication, some slavers show up, knock out Anthar and spirit off Soraya.
The extra complications don't add much to the story, which might have been much improved with a little more focus on the romance of princess and commoner, since said romance eventually develops out of next to nothing. Eventually, when Anthar does rescue Soraya again, his next move is to try figuring out some way to rescue her brother and thus to lead a rebellion of loyalists. There's a quick scene of a messenger who reveals to hero and heroine that a rebellion has been in the works all the time that Anthar's been busy saving the hot princess, so that's a big help.
Despite the fine photography, Marghreriti doesn't offer many cool fight-scenes, one of the signal appeals of the subgenre. Anthar has just two decent strength-stunts, one of which consists of ripping a metal door off its hinges and tossing it at bad soldiers. Slightly better is a scene in which Anthar gets dumped into a narrow pit inhabited by a nasty rhinoceros. Of course if the beast simply charged the hero from a suitable distance, things would have been all over for Anthar. Fortunately the rhino just trundles slowly up to meet the strongman, who wrestles with him briefly before a friendly hand lifts Anthar clear.
The movie's one redeeming scene takes place in a maze of mirrors, which for unstated reasons Ganor has had constructed in the palace at Baghdad. Viewers get a quick object lesson of Ganor executing a nobody in the maze, and then at the climax it's Anthar's turn. The strongman simply smashes all the mirrors, and when Ganor is at his mercy, the coward falls out of a convenient window, saving the hero from bloodying his hands.
Morris is a personable non-entity, which is more than I can say for any other character in the movie, and the mirror maze is inventive. Otherwise, ANTHAR is a very "vincible" piece of formula entertainment.
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