Maciste alla corte del Gran Khan (1961)

User Rating:

4.8/10   

Director:

Riccardo Freda

Writers:

Oreste Biancoli (screenplay)
Oreste Biancoli (story)

Release Date:

December 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama

Tagline:

The Mightiest of Them All!

Plot:

Sam must rescue a beautiful Chinese princess from a marauding horde of warriors. |

Plot Keywords:

Princess | Chinese | Whipping | Invader | Slavery

Cast

Gordon Scott	...	Maciste / Samson (U.S. English version)
Yoko Tani	...	Princess Lei-ling
Hélène Chanel	...	Kiutai
Dante DiPaolo	...	Bayan
Gabriele Antonini	...	Cho
Leonardo Severini	...	Garak
Valéry Inkijinoff	...	High Priest
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Luong-Ham Chan
Tonino Cianci		(as Antonio Cianci)
Chu Lai Chit
Franco Ressel
Giacomo Tchang
Sergio Ukmar
Ely Yeh

Also Known As:

Goliath and the Golden City
Le géant a la cour de Kublai Khan (France)
Maciste at the Court of the Great Khan
Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World (USA) (promotional title)

Runtime:

USA:80 min

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Canada:PG (Ontario)

Company:

Gallus Films

Trivia:

With the massive exterior sets, lavish interior sets and a multitude of Asian extras left over from Marco Polo (1961), Panda Productions had writers Oreste Biancoli and Duccio Tessari fashion a sword-and-sandal/mythological muscleman epic--a genre that had become highly popular around the world--placing hero Maciste in a Chinese setting. Genre specialist Riccardo Freda was brought in to direct, Gordon Scott was cast as Maciste (renamed "Samson" for the U.S. version) and Yoko Tani was kept on as the female lead.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: When the new execution device is being demonstrated, Maciste makes his way through a crowd of Chinese people. Although he is much larger than anyone else, and is almost naked, nobody seems to notice him.

Another glorified muscleman movie expertly exploited by American International into drive-in big bucks.

Ex-Tarzan Gordon Scott is the beefcake in this low-budget but exotic sword-and-sandal potboiler, set, oddly enough, in China. The set pieces are convincingly done for a mini-epic of this sort, and Scott appears to have done some amazing stuntwork in a chariot sequence. Les Baxter's recognizable GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS score has been superimposed once again by American International to good effect. One of the better retro-stud peplums for those interested.