Son of Hercules: Land of Darkness (1963)

Hercules the Invincible
Hercules Against the Elephants' Empire

Cast:

Dan "How'd I get in so many Clint Eastwood movies?" Vadis is Ercole (Argolese)
Spela Rozin is Telca
Carla Calò is Ella, Queen of the Demulus
Ken Clark is Kabol, Melissia's Father
John Simons is Babar

What the box says:

Hercules falls for the daughter of a deposed king whose kingdom is held in thrall by an evil queen. The queen captures our hero and orders him torn apart like a wishbone by wild elephants. He survives and the queen falls for him, but he is true to his love. The queen's subjects rise up in arms and her realm is engulfed un a volcanic eruption. Somewhere along the way Hercules and his chubby comic companion fight off lions, bears, and an angry dragon.

Plot:

ARgolese, son of Hercules, wanders around the country having adventures. He finds Telka who is being attacked by a lion. He wrestles the lion to save her.

You're not a cuddly kitty-cat... He gets mauled and is taken to the nearby village. King Tedeo thanks Argolese for saving his daughter, Telca. The king also offers to let Argolese marry Telca if he can kill the dragon rampaging the countryside. Argolese heads to off to start on that quest.

The army of a nearby evil kingdom, Demius, attacks Tedeo's kingdom, capturing the subjects. and sets the city on fire...

Elsewhere, Argolese finds and slays the dragon.

Demius, the evil queen, Ella, judges the prisoners and enslaves Telca as her hand-maiden.

Argolese is told by Babar of the attack.

Chunky sidekick will be tossed at the evil goon... They head off to rescue them from Demius. It takes some time for them to infilitrate into the secret entrance of the kingdom. They find Telca's dying brother.
Sorry, I'll straighten the bars... Argolese handles the army but is caught and taken to Queen Ella. She orders him to be torn apart by elephants and be devoured by her army.

Argolese is chained between 2 elephants. The chains break. Argolese saves Queen Ella from being ran over by the elephants. This act inspires her to let Argolese join the kingdom.

Queen Ella is stabbed by her daughter, Princess Melissia who accuses Telca of being the murderer. Princess Melissia also wants to sacrifice Telca to take her beauty.

Argolese and Babar sneak into the castle to find Telca. Babar heads off to free the imprisoned King Tedeo. They plan on hopw to activate Demius secret lava chambers to destroy the city kingdom. Argolese finds the lava contraption and starts it.

Princess Melissia readies to sacrifice Telca for the coronation.

Babar frees the Tedeo and the prinsoners to rescue Telca and escape. In the throne room, the army's general kills Tedeo as the rebeling prisoners attack the Demiusians. The army attacks Argolese.

Melissia is a bit more concerned with crowning herself queen of the empire rather than be concerned with the lava destroying the castle. Argolese escapes with Telca. They escape from the castle while Argolese holds the Demius army back by tearing the drawbridge apart.

Throne room collapses on top of Melissia.

The freed people celebrate and cheer for Argolese and Telca.

What I say:

Trying to keep track of how the Hercules movies get adapted is a challenge. The 1960s saw a syndicated "Sons of Hercules" show pop up. It took sword and sandal movies and cut them down into 2 part hour shows with a narrator explaining how Hercules is in the show, a theme song extolling how the show is about one of Hercules sons even if the originals were about Hercules, Maciste, Ulysses, Goliath, and a couple of other more generic named movie heroes.

Peplum movies aren't quite know for having brilliant scripts or even good actors. If these movies had actors that weren't too bad, that was a miracle. A few decent body-built actors slipped through like Steve Reeves in Hercules Hercules Unchained, and White Warrior which helped start the subgenre.

Better than the always usual, a strongman tossing a log to knock down a row of attacking soldiers. Throughout this movie, Argolese handles a lion, dragon, grizzly bear(in a suit that looks worse than a worn out gorilla suit), and elephant pulling. Have to make the evil kingdom look "Drown a Sack of Kitten" evil... If them enslaving nearby villages isn't bad enough, they also think that consuming the courageous soldiers will make them braver. Tearing demigods apart by elephants will give the soldiers body parts to consume to make them supoer-soldiers in a pre-steroid era. They think sacrificing beautiful princess will beautify them in a pre-Botox by several thousand years.

Dan Vadis is Ercole, the (Italian name for Hercules) or Argolese (the slightly different name which sounded more like a son of Hercules) in several of the Peplum movies. By the mid 1960s, he pops up in several of the Spaghetti westerns before showing up in Bronco Billy, Every Which Way But Loose, Gauntlet, and High Plains Drifter. Quite a few Clint Eastwood movies that at least are more remembered than Sons of Hercules: Land of Darkness.

The dubbing for most of these movies is hilarious and only just a little below the hilarity of a Godzilla movie dubbing. Well, Hercules in New York had Arnie long before he was Governating California.

Hercules movies aren't known for having great epic names. Hercules Against the Moon Men, Hercules & the Captive Women, Hercules & the Masked Rider, Hercules & the Tyrants of Babylon, and Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules. Which character has better sounding titles: Godzilla or Hercules? Godzilla 2000, Godzilla's Revenge, Godzilla Versus Mothra, King Kong Versus Godzilla, and Terror of MechaGodzilla. Yes, I'm only counting the ones I reviewed.

The plot on back of the DVD cover sounds different than the title. The title calls it Son of Hercules: Land of the Darkness. However the plot calls our hero Hercules, not his son. So many of these movies have an evil queen that orders the hero's death but decides to change her mind and is wooed by such a manly hero dude.

Most movies have the sidekick who at least are more heroic. However, Babar is the typical goofy sidekick. He is always hungry and trying to eat, and terrified of his own shadow, cowardly... Trying to keep from laughing at the fact the the sidekick's name is Babar, Argolese is being torn apart by elephants, and one of the movie's other titles is Hercules Against the Elephants' Empire is definitely a good chunk of funny.

Quotable Dialogue
"An enemy that is invisible is the worst enemy."
"Not one has eyes like perriwinkles."
"Tomorrow, in the arena, you will be torn into pieces by my elephants."
"People of Demulus, the warriors proving they are worthy of the honor will eat the flesh of this powerful man. The one who's able to tear out his heart will become commanding general over all my forces. "
Morals of the Story
Lions don't like boulders thrown at them.
Heroes need chunky sidekicks.
Grizzly bears are excellent trackers.
Falling causes spontaneous combustion.