Spartacus and the Ten Gladiators (1964)

Thanks for the memories!

A Disappointing Continuation

There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

As I've mentioned before in the past, I generally don't think much of the sword and sandal movies that came out of Europe in the 1960s. So you might imagine my surprise when I found this particular example of the genre to be not that bad at all. Now, I'll admit it's far from perfect. The movie does have a major weakness, and that is with the characters. The ten gladiators, for one thing, are pretty much interchangeable; we hardly learn a thing about them such as their names, and they all seem to talk and act alike. Spartacus isn't that much better written, one reason being that he doesn't make that many appearances, and the few times he shows up are pretty short in length. As for the bad guys, they are straight out of the stock character catalog. But if you're willing to put up with the poorly written characters, the movie does all the same manage to be reasonably entertaining. The story is snappily paced, and even manages to put in a bit more plot than usual. The production values aren't bad, and the main selling point of the movie - action - is well done. There's quite a bit of action, and the action is choreographed and directed in a manner to be quite exciting at times. "Spartacus and the Ten Gladiators" isn't a great movie, but it does satisfy the lazy weekend audience. It is perfectly fine non-think entertainment. We all get in that mood on occasion, so when you're in that particular frame of mind, give it a spin in your DVD player.

From a female standpoint of view, there is no (real) beefcake here because they all look like a bunch of apes. Spartacus being the ugliest of the apes. Good thing this is a comedy! They have Spartacus and his 10 merry men rebelling against fighting their own in the coliseum sports. Yet half of the film is of Spartacus and his 10 men fighting their own. Ironic ain't it. They roll around really well on the ground too. :P It's a terrible B film but does have some funny stuff that makes it worth watching on this rainy morning. It's an awful movie but it is cheap entertainment from the Mill Creek Warriors 50-Pack.3.5/10

71 B.C. during the rebellion of Spartacus , a gladiator named Rocca (Dan Vadis)and his band of fellows gladiators (Sal Borgese, Vassili Karis, Pietro Torrisi, Jeff Cameron... )flee from Coliseum. After that ,they save the damsel in distress , a senator 's daughter (Ursula Davis) . They're well received by the senator Varro (Gianni Rizzo) , though are poisoned and locked . Later on, they escape and join forces with Spartacus (Ivano Staccioli, alias John Heston) to fight patrician senator Varro. Spartacus wants return to Tracia and is waiting some ships. Ten gladiators are faced at every turn by Roman army. Meanwhile Rocca falls in love with Daliah(Helga Line) and then must rescue her from slavery and death. The slavers are building an aqueduct and the gladiators attack the detachment.This is the second part in the ¨ Ten gladiators trilogy¨. It packs action, fights , sword-play, adventures and some touches of humor . Ample support cast formed by muscle-men and regular from Western and Peplum as Enzo Fiermonte, Jeff Cameron,Pietro Torrisi who in the 80s as Peter McCoy played several sword and witchery movies and Ricardo Pizzuti as Roman soldier , he's usual in Terence Hill-Spencer movies. As comic relief appears Sal Borgese, a sympathetic secondary playing a deaf-mute. Good production values with spectacular final battle full of extras and stock-shots from previous Roman films . It's shot in Rome, Lazio and Barcelona, Cataluña, because it's a co-production Spanish/ Italian produced by Alfonso Balcazar . Atmospheric score by Carlo Savina with catching musical leitmotif, he's usual of Western and substituting to Angelo Francesco Lavagnino who composed the first entry. Cheesy edition by Bruno Mattei, later famous director of ¨Z¨ Italian films.The motion picture is professionally directed by Nick Nostro.The best installment is the first titled ¨I dice gladiatori(1963) or Ten gladiators¨ by Gianfranco Parolini with Roger Browne, Jose Greci and Dan Vavis as Rocca who dies at the end ; here the gladiators taking on Nero, Gianni Rizzo, and his henchman Tijelinus . It's followed by ¨Spartacus and ten gladiators¨ and the third outing titled ¨Triumph of ten gladiators or Il Trionfo dei Dieci Gladiators ¨ again by Nick Nostro and Gianni Rizzo as evil villain.

There are three films featuring the Ten Gladiators and starring Dan Vadis as the muscleman Roccia (literally "The Rock"!); this is the second entry in the series and, with a title like that, comparisons to Stanley Kubrick's SPARTACUS (1960) are bound to arise which, frankly, do it no favors at all! For one thing, the Spartacus of this film is overage and engages in an interminable fight with Vadis on their first meeting (after which they become allies); on the other hand, the slimy Roman senator and chief villain here is given a Charles Laughton-like voice in the English dubbing but is saddled with an incompetent giant (!) for a henchman (actually the same 'actor' was equally ill-at-ease in SAMSON [1961], which I had watched earlier in my peplum marathon). At least, Euro-Cult regular Helga Line' is on hand as the attractive heroine