With a score that alternates between big band swing, boogie-woogie piano, Las Vegas-styled burlesque, and whimsical numbers a la "The Little Rascals," this is a film that does not take itself seriously. In fact, it is rife with humor—unfunny humor, alas. The screenplay is credited to seven writers, which never portends good things.
COLOSSUS & THE AMAZON QUEEN follows Glaucus (Ed Fury), the strongest man in Greece (Suck it, Hercules!), and his sidekick Pirro (Rod Taylor), a fast-talking con man, as they take jobs aboard a cargo ship. When they arrive at their island destination, the men are drugged and abducted by Amazon warriors, who take them first as lovers, then as slaves. When Glaucus falls for Antiope (Dorian Gray, sans portrait), the Amazon Queen-in-Waiting, this angers her rival Melitta (Daniela Rocca), who plots her revenge.
The movie's failed attempts at humor revolve mainly around slapstick that makes the Three Stooges look like Woody Allen. Pirro's manipulations are supposed to make us laugh at the gullibility of his dupes, but instead made me want to punch Pirro in the face. There's an Egyptian inventor named Sopho (Ignazio Leone) who is determined to free Glaucus and Pirro from their captivity. Using one of his inventions, the boomerang, Sopho accidentally whacks Glaucus in the head, knocking him unconscious while the muscleman single- handedly fights a platoon of Amazons. (Funny, huh?) Finally, we get light-in-the-sandals male slaves who are so accustomed to their captivity, they exchange recipes and complain about not getting their laundry "sparkly" enough. It's the kind of gay stereotype that went out of style in the '70s and today is just cringeworthy.
OK, so the comedy falls on its face. Surely the action scenes make up for it? Uh, no. The action sequences are as contrived and unexciting as the humor is unfunny. Meanwhile, the Amazon warriors wear black spandex-type uniforms that look seriously out of place in the ancient world. Not to mention that the reigning queen, Regina, has lipstick on. In one scene, a skirt-wearing Amazon inadvertently provides a glimpse of her 20th-century panties.
Do I even have to tell you the dubbing job sucks? They didn't even get Rod Taylor to dub his own damned character into English!
The Italian "sword and sandals" films that thrived in the early '60s always veered perilously close to farce. It was redundant to make a movie poking fun at the genre. COLOSSUS & THE AMAZON QUEEN tries too hard to be funny and exciting; it ends up being neither.