COLOSSUS AND THE AMAZON QUEEN (1960)

 

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

Here's a poor excuse for a peplum-comedy that makes MACISTE AND HERCULES IN THE VALE OF WOE look like BLAZING SADDLES.

There's nothing inherently wrong with either misogynistic or misandrist comedy, given that comedy should be all about breaking boundaries. But even allowing for the vagaries of dubbing, COLOSSUS AND THE AMAZON QUEEN is one dull trip into "good old Eye-talian boy" territory. A lot of Italian muscle-man films get tagged for being masculinist. In truth, the straightforward adventure-films generally show female characters with a lot of agency, even if they can't toss boulders around. But not in AMAZON. 

The film takes place some time after the Trojan War, though I don't know why the writers even specifying the period, unless they were drawing some connection to the presence of Amazon warriors in some of the Trojan War folklore. Greek con-man Pirro (Rod Taylor) and his hulking buddy Glauco (Ed Fury of URSUS fame) undertake a sea-voyager that deposits them in the land of the Amazons. They are indeed ruled by a Queen (the renowned Gianna Maria Canale), but she has little to do with the main story. 

In the Amazon land, the women do all the soldiering duty (particularly against invading pirates) while the men are consigned to wash clothes, darn socks, and all those woman-type things. When Pirro and Glauco are imprisoned, Glauco uses his strength to bend the prison bars, but Pirro talks him into refraining, so that they can get in good with the babes. In due time each of the guys gets matched up with a comely chick (Malitta for Pirro, Antiope for Glauco), both of whom happen to be vying for the position of "Amazon Queen" when the current monarch steps down.

There's a time-killing plot about a stolen sacred girdle, but I got bored. It would be fine with me had the writers thrown in the occasional joke about feminine limitations, but all the women in the movie are so dim that one wonders how they even got dressed every morning. Though the babes run around with spears and bows, they're barely ever shown being proficient in battle, so how do they even manage to keep from being overcome by raiders? At the end the mighty heroes have to intervene to save the girls from the pirates, and the broad suggestion is that this spells the end of the matriarchal society. The brief action scenes are totally forgettable, and despite many pretty women in the cast, the script doesn't give even the main stars any amusing activities, just lots of sterile talking-head scenes. Most of the "straight" Italian adventure-films never earn a mythicity-rating above "poor," but I'd almost want to invent a ranking even lower than that, just for COLOSSUS AND THE AMAZON QUEEN.