GOLIATH AT THE CONQUEST OF DAMASCUS (1965)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

One or two online reviews tagged this late peplum movie as the reason the genre died off in the mid-sixties. Though it's a very minor example of its species, in terms of simple entertainment value DAMASCUS probably isn't much worse than a lot of lesser efforts, including the 1959 movie that initiated the often-inappropriate use of the name "Goliath" for various muscleman heroes. It's also no worse than the companion film writer-director Domenico Paolella made around the same time with many of the same cast-members, not least star "Rock Stevens" (Peter Lupus) as the hero. Some eagle-eyed reviewers spotted that DAMASCUS re-used some cavalry scenes from HERCULES AND THE TYRANTS OF BABYLON. 

The rightful ruler of Damascus (apparently "Bagdad" in the original script) has been deposed by a usurper with the unusual name of "Thor" (Piero Lulli). When the ruler sends his beautiful daughter to be married to the prince of another realm, possibly with an eye to making new military allies, a gang of bandits abduct Princess Meriem (Anna Maria Polani). These Bedouin-looking bandits, who sport another curious name (Kara-Ghitai, which sounds like Kara-Khitai, an archaic name for China), hold Meriem prisoner, and though her father summons the help of strongman Goliath (who has no backstory), the hero arrives too late.

Skipping over a lot of boring conspiracy conversations, Goliath begins the process of infiltrating the bandits so that he can liberate Meriem. The princess' father sends Goliath to Damascus to make contact with a couple of loyalist spies, Yassour (Mario Petri) and Fatma (Helga Line). For some reason, Yassour tests Goliath's loyalty by instructing Fatma to tempt him with pleasures of the flesh, and though Goliath seems to be more intrigued than most peplum-heroes, he refuses lovely Fatma's enticements and passes the test. In due time Goliath joins the Kara-Ghitai by the unusual strategy of getting into a fight with them to prove his mettle, and surprisingly, they accept this complete outsider. They almost brand Goliath with their insider facial mark, but they get interrupted, so that the star doesn't have to spend the rest of the film with an appliance on his face.

DAMASCUS doesn't have many spectacular battle-scenes, not counting those recycled from the earlier film, and the closest thing to a demonstration of uncanny strength comes near the end, when Goliath and another muscleman force open the gates of Damascus by sheer glute-power. Goliath by himself has a scene where he stabs an enemy with a stone thunderbolt taken from the statue of a local pagan deity, but the concluding sword-battle is between secondary hero Yassour and a traitorous Bedouin. Meriem is reunited with her groom and Damascus is saved. Lupus/Stevens projects a certain degree of charm in his stolid role, but the movie's main assets are the two Euro-babes, though they don't get to do much of anything. I've seen eight of Paolella's directorial efforts (dubbed of course), and the only one I found exceptional was a mundane spaghetti western called HATE FOR HATE, which genre was probably a better fit for the raconteur than that of peplum.