Hannibal (1960)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

There are four things for which this film is worth seeing and remembering: Victor Mature as Hannibal, the crossing of the Alps with live elephants, the meticulously reconstructed battle of Cannae, and a magnificent score by Carlo Rustichelli. The story isn't bad with the loyalty conflicts of Fabius' niece joining hands with Hannibal the number one enemy of Rome and ultimately abandoning him to return to Rome, which doesn't thank her for it, but, as so often in Ulmer's films, the dialogue does not come alive and fails to flow. The actors aren't bad, but the script is not good enough for therm. It's a great story, and it's even greater when you consider that only half of it is told here, the rest of Hannibal's career was perhaps even more dramatic than the first part up to his greatest glory at the victory of Cannae, which is the only part this film has bothered to screen. Victor Mature was always an impressing actor but was unfortunately burdened by scripts that kept him confined to beefy heroes for the display of muscles and knuckles in extensive fisticuffs, so it's only seldom he was allowed to actually be the great actor he was. He almost gets through here, like in John Ford's "My Darling Clementine". Gabriele Ferzetti is excellent as Fabius, he has really studied this character carefully, and Rita Gam also makes the best of it, but she was better in Nicholas Ray's "King of Kings" as the lewd Herodias.This is one of the better Peplum films, they were produced en masse in the fifties up to "The Fall of the Roman Empire", and their number tended to spoil them, give them a bad reputation as only spectacular superficialities, which ultimately made them disappear losing their good box office standing, but a few of them are worth rediscovering for re-evaluation and exoneration. This was one of them, mainly for the sake of Victor Mature.

Those of you who read my reviews know that I love the old classics -- mostly because I think that real screen acting was born and made by that generation. They made their characters larger than life and knew how to win our hearts doing it. Ok, going back to HANNIBAL and his elephants, Victor Mature does a remarkable job as as title character, making us love and even root for the historical figure who has always been considered a very unrelenting sort of fellow since childhood. The performance gives us a small peek into a more human side. Highly recommending the film.

HANNIBAL is an average kind of sword and sandal epic put out by the Italians. It lacks the budget to do justice to the big historical battles and it gets bogged down in some tacked-on romantic melodrama which I don't remember reading about in the histories, but at least it looks colourful and exciting. Victor Mature plays the Carthaginian general who leads his army across the Alps to attack Rome, and yes, he brings his elephants along. There are only two or three scenes with said elephants but they're handled very well and the best parts of the picture. This is the kind of film which is entertaining when depicting action but slightly dull for the rest of the time. Terence Hill and Bud Spencer star, years before they went on to be big names in the spaghetti western genre.

Produced by Ottavio Poggi. Executive producer: Jack Dietz. A Liber Film, photographed in Technicolor and SuperCinemscope in Italy and Yugoslavia. Released through Warner Bros. Copyright 1959 by Warner Bros Pictures. New York opening at neighborhood theaters: 3 August 1960. U.S. release: June 1960. U.K. release: floating from September 1960. Australian release: 26 October 1961. 9,291 feet. 103 minutes. Italian title: ANNIBALE.SYNOPSIS: In 218 B.C., Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, is planning an invasion of Rome. After making his historic crossing of the Alps with elephants transporting his troops and supplies, he begins his march on Rome. En route he falls in love with the beautiful Sylvia, the niece of a Roman senator. After defeating the Romans at Trebbia, Hannibal and Sylvia continue to meet secretly though the girl's uncle warns her she is committing treason against Rome. Then Hannibal's wife, Danila, arrives unexpectedly from Carthage.COMMENT: Quickie, extra-low-budget auteur hero, Edgar G. Ulmer, is hardly the man I would have chosen to direct any sort of an epic, let alone one about Hannibal and "his mighty army of mastodons that clobbered half the world!" (to quote Warner's publicity). My educated guess is that Ulmer merely directed the English-language dubbing, and that the movie was actually directed by Carlo L. Bragaglia.Despite the spectacle, the scenery and the occasional spurt of action, "Hannibal" emerges as pretty dull, both as a fellow and a picture. Particularly as a fellow. Indeed, in the inept persona of Victor Mature he's something less than just plain boring. The other principals struggle valiantly to bring a mite of conviction to their roles, with Milly Vitale making a fair impression in a small, thankless part as our hero's wife. But what's really needed to bring the picture up to par are a good pair of scissors.OTHER VIEWS: Directed and staged in a most desultory fashion by auteur hero Edgar G. Ulmer, with remarkably inept integration of studio and location material. Even the battle sequences, though staged on an impressive size, are all but ruined by slipshod continuity. In fact, the whole film suffers from maladroit editing which is undoubtedly more the fault of director Ulmer than editor Cinquini. Only a couple of sequences (the aftermath of the battle) make any impression. Mature goes through his usual range of mugging and facial contortions as Hannibal and Rita Gam, looking thin and sharp-featured in an unbecoming up-swept hair style, gives plenty of evidence for her present-day lack of demand. The two "stars" use their own voices while the rest of the cast (with the possible exception of Milly Vitale — her role is too small to tell) are dubbed. The film's sole redeeming features are the attractive costumes and the bright (though occasionally inexplicably washed-out — most notably in the scenes in the Roman Senate) color photography. — JHR writing as George Addison.