Ursus in the Land of Fire (1963)

When the evil general “Amilcare” (Adriano Micantoni) kills king “Lothar” and seizes his throne, he promptly marries the dead king’s niece “Mila” (Claudia Mori) to legitimise his rule and this narks his neighbours whom he invades, persecutes and enslaves. They find a champion in “Ursus” (Ed Fury) who challenges the new king, but that proves a daft plan as it just sees him arrested and chained to a grist-mill for his troubles. Meantime, the true heir to the kingdom, “Diana” (Luciana Gilli) is slowly being tortured to death by her queenly cousin so it’s going to take all of the strength “Ursus” can manage if he is to galvanise his shepherding population and take on the king, his troops, the scheming “Mila” and save the Princess. Now of course there’s no jeopardy at all here, it is all by the numbers stuff and Fury is all muscle from head to toe as he woodenly trots out the mundane dialogue, but there are a few memorable scenes to look out for. My favourite sees him trapped in a cage full of sharp spears whilst two sets of horses try to pull him apart, but there’s also a volcano to contend with and there’s lots and lots of sheep too - though they’re not so menacing. Micantoni and Mori make for quite a decent baddies and were it not for the really poor standard of the production, especially the editing and the continuity, this would have made for quite a reasonable sword fighting adventure. Sadly, though, it’s all just rather sloppily put together and misses more than it hits.