User reviews

The Roman Gods take center stage in this one with an old fashioned Olympic triangle taking place at the home of the Gods. Venus, the God of beauty and love is making a play for Vulcan and she's got him panting hot and heavy after her. That upsets Mars and Jupiter banishes all three to earth to sort it all out.

Vulcan finds himself a nice earthly mortal who rivals Venus for her beauty, but he still doesn't like Mars. And Mars has got himself a Tower of Babel like scheme whereby he allies himself with some earthly despots to build a tower as tall as Olympus. Can Vulcan stop him in time from challenging Jupiter himself?

The Greeks and Romans did not believe in one all seeing and all pervasive spirit like Deity. They liked their immortals with all the, dare I say it, human frailties built in. The idea for the film is an interesting one, but the roles would require some classically trained actors, not people who are used to peplum spectacles.

Two muscle men: Gordon Mitchell is Pluto this time and Rod Flash is Vulcan! Monsters are terrorizing the people of the land and Vulcan must save them before Mt. Olympus falls to ruin.

This one does have enough cheese to make the bread taste good. It's dumb enough to be entertaining, yet bad enough that most people will not watch.

This one could have been a good movie if was done right. I'm not advocating a remake but if the film makers would have done this one properly it could have been almost as good as Clash of the Titans 1981. Sadly this one didn't have the money pumped into it to create a film as good as "Clash"... it had the potential though.

4/10

For folks who have no lives and avoid deep thinking, the sweaty Italian beefcake films of the late '50s/early '60s rank right up there with the Japanese "Godzilla" series and Mexican masked-wrestler epics as the ultimate in brainless entertainment. I'm not alone in this conclusion: Studies from Bulgaria in the 1970s provide the proof. They've got the data; let's not argue.

If you hanker for bad dubbing, rotten special effects, and ridiculous plot lines, this genre is your meat. Universally, they feature poorly staged action scenes - always a bad sign in action movies - and richly saturated color that jumps off the screen and toys sadistically with human eyeballs.

"Vulcan, Son of Jupiter" is a better-than-usual entry for one simple reason: There are a lot of half-naked women running around, too. Set in Bronze Age Greece, it details a war among the gods of Olympus over who's gonna snag the tail of Venus. Or Aphrodite - can't remember exactly; she's the Goddess of Love, anyway. There's fighting, infighting, scheming and a very brave midget. Chariots... yelling. Y'know.

It stars a guy named Rod Flash. Of course, that's his real name... And I'm Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. Doesn't matter. He's got a bod that could sell a whooole lotta Blueboy subscriptions. In fact, I wonder how these guys manage stay so oily. Was there a pec-lubrication specialist on the set?

One bright spot is a beguiling showgirl-style dance by the astoundingly sexy Bella Cortez. Could any other woman so mesmerize with the gemstone jiggling in her navel? Whatever happened to this beautiful Cuban actress? At the end of her dance, the god Mercury shows up and tugs playfully at a jewel on her scanty costume; the quick gesture leaves a strangely potent erotic jolt.

Interestingly, most of the over-the-hill bodybuilders in peplum were Americans who hung out at Gold's Gym in Santa Monica. Gordon Scott actually had a brief Hollywood career - as the first Technicolor Tarzan. Steve Reeves was... well... he was in a Ed Wood film in the mid-'50s. Gordon Mitchell, who's in "Vulcan" and was a kind of poor man's Charlton Heston, was the best actor of the lot, with a career mostly in Italy lasting until the early 2000s (He played the catamite-hungry gladiator in Fellini's "Satyricon").

This is now my fourth encounter with a movie involving Italian film-maker Emimmo Salvi – 2 of which proved positive but the remainder were not; consequently, I cannot say that I am looking forward to catch up with a fifth title...which is bound to be the Spaghetti Western, WANTED JOHNNY Texas (1967)! Anyway, the film under review is yet another peplum dealing with mythological Greek gods and must surely rank as one of the weirdest ever made – sometimes breaching a level of awfulness that almost equals the one displayed by Luigi Cozzi's more inventive HERCULES revamps of the 1980s!

Rod Flash (a pseudonym for Iloosh Khoshabe!) plays the titular blacksmith (the Roman god of fire) forging weapons for the likes of Achilles in the Olympian foundry who is improbably involved in a divine love triangle with the nymphomaniac Venus (played by Annie Gorassini being, quite evidently, the Roman goddess of love!; her initial tryst with Adonis is summarily ended by a lightning bolt thrown by an angered Jupiter!) and Mars (for being the Roman god of war and impersonated by future "Argoman" Roger Browne, he is pretty ineffectual in combat and has to seek the help of humans to reach his vengeful ambitions!). The ensuing struggle angers the king of gods, Jupiter (the Roman equivalent of the Greek almighty, Zeus) who sends them all to sort out their romantic issues on Earth! Lamely, despite all manner of wild-eyed characters and wild creatures, the conflict is finally resolved by Jupiter's anti-climactic vocal admonishment from the skies after all! For what it is worth, among the other inhabitants on Mount Olympus that put in an incidental appearance here are Pluto (incarnated by Salvi regular Gordon Mitchell and prone as ever to maniacal cackling!) and Mercury (played by character actor Isarco Ravaioli).

On the earthly side of the fence, Vulcan is abetted by Bella Cortez (playing his new love interest Aetna and the protagonist of a surprisingly sensual dance routine that for once justifies these normally terminally bland additions to the peplum stew), a pony-riding dwarf (ingenious or what?) and a sleepy-eyed Neptune and his Morlock-like minions! Hindering his progress, so to speak, are a Thracian warlord (who is somehow convinced by Mars to build a tower all the way up to Olympus with the intent of besieging it!) and his awfully silly-looking fanged lizard men!! This unheralded and (mostly unintentionally) enjoyable viewing came by way of a very battered, highly washed-out English-dubbed print available on a "You Tube" channel dedicated to this most maligned of film subgenres.

Cheap Italian 1960s sword & sandal "epic" about Greek God Jupiter tiring of his daughter Venus' wildchild promiscuous ways and decides it's time to marry her off. This leads to many potential suitors and much infighting among the gods. Badly dubbed, ridiculously cheap special effects, and generally poor production values make this a far cry from "Jason and the Argonauts" or "Clash of the Titans," but there is something endearing about these sorts of awful films and "Vulcan, Son of Giove" is a pretty respectable entry in the disreputable Italian muscle man sub genre (i.e. remember that SNL skit where Bill Murray played Hercules? "That boulder is too large. I could move a smaller one."). Although not a good film in the conventional sense, I was very much entertained.

Trouble develops in Olympus when "Venus, the Goddess of Love" (Annie Gorassini) is scolded by her father, "Jupiter, the God of Lightning" (Furio Meniconi) for her promiscuous ways. To remedy this continual problem, Jupiter announces his intention to marry her off to either "Mars, the God of War" (Roger Browne) or "Vulcan, the God of Fire and Blacksmithing" (Iloosh Khoshabe). Yet rather than wait a month or so for Jupiter's decision, Venus decides to take matters into her own hands and joins with Mars and "Pluto, the God of Darkness" (Gordon Mitchell) in an attempted revolt. And since both Mars and Vulcan have been cast to earth pending Jupiter's determination, that's where Mars begins his disloyal operation. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this was an okay "Sword & Sandal" film for the most part. Unfortunately, it suffered greatly from being rather incoherent and confusing at times due to a lack of sufficient character development. It's also quite possible that the fact that this movie was originally produced in Italian and dubbed into English may not have helped either. Likewise, a few of the costumes could have used some improvement as well. On the plus side, I thought that both Annie Gorassini and Bella Cortez (as the sea nymph, "Aetna") were rather striking which certainly didn't hurt matters. Even so, neither of them were able to overcome the disjointed script or plot and as a result I rate this movie as slightly below average.

Hopefully you can find a decent print. The copy you can download for free (public domain) from the Internet archive isn't too bad.

What you should know:

) It's entertainingly bad. Really entertaining and really bad.

) A main theme of the movie is the Goddess Venus being a loose woman (not a spoiler).

) It's poorly dubbed from Italian

) We were confused a lot (yes, my wife watched it too).

) The little man's dubbed voice often sounded like Grep Proops of "Whose Line is it Anyway." It also sounded a lot like what Greg would say as a parody.

) The God Neptune looked like an exhausted junkie.

) The scene where Vulcan is carrying the little man by his belt and the little man is having a tantrum is worth sitting through the entire movie.

) When the little man clonks a downed warrior with his club, he says "Bonk!" or "Ding Dong!"

) When the barbarians attack Vulcan, they do it serially so each one can get beaten up; I guess it never occurred to them to gang up

) Etc.

This medium-scale peplum has a problem: Venus. And the problem with Venus is that she's a no-good tramp, whom no man or god can resist because she's so beautiful. (It's actually kind of hard to tell just how beautiful the actress is; one suspects she really would look rather ordinary if you scraped away the ton of makeup.) Apparently even the gods can only take so much scandalous behavior, so in order to "tame" Venus, it is decided to marry her off. Yeah, that'll work. The main candidates are Vulcan and Mars; Mercury, played rather conspicuously as gay, is obviously not in the running. When the squabbling between these rivals (not helped by the meddling of Gordon Mitchell's scheming Pluto) gets to be too much, Jupiter banishes the lot of them to Earth, where they must contend with mortals, Lizard Men, armies, barbarians, and so forth.

This isn't exactly a "good" movie, but it's a fun peplum, in large part because much of it takes place in the realms of the gods, where modest but nice sets, garish colored lighting, and lots of dry ice make a stylish impression a la (if hardly in the same league as) Bava's "Hercules in the Haunted World." Some will argue there's not enough "action," but things move fast enough. And frankly I think the dullest thing about these movies is that they often spend so much time having extras march around and have unconvincing sword fights in interchangeable desert-type settings. So this movie's emphasis instead on fantasy and intrigue is an improvement, in my book.

As Vulcan, Iloosh Khoshabe (who had a career in Iranian films before and after his run of Italian muscleman roles) has a fine physique, but he's a pretty colorless actor. Perhaps to make up for that lack, most of the other actors ham mercilessly, abetted (in the dubbed print I saw) by some comically stilted English dialogue. As Mars, Roger Browne also spends the whole movie shirtless to good effect. Annie Gorassini's Venus pouts and poses (albeit with a very 1960s hairdo) in an entertainingly campy fashion. As the "nice girl" Vulcan ultimately prefers, buxom Bella Cortez nonetheless performs a "dance" where she just kinda struts around in a bikini, at one point simply lying down in front of our hero and writhing.

Well, nobody watches a movie like this for the choreography...or the acting. Given the leads' natural attributes and minimal clothing (plus the whole plot being motivated by Venus' allure and insatiable appetites), this is a slightly sexier peplum than most.

I wonder if this movie was shot back-to-back with "The Seven Tasks of Ali Baba," because it involves the same director and much of the same cast. In any case, I saw there were several versions of "Vulcan" on YouTube, and watched the one that had the best-quality print in terms of definition and color (though it wasn't the most complete re: running time). That was a good decision, because this movie's silly charms are almost entirely visual. I wavered between giving this a 5 and a 6, but if it had been seen in a washed-out, 3rd-generation TV print, it probably wouldn't have earned more than a 4.

"It's a battle between mortals and gods as the right to claim the Goddess of Love as their own brings the Roman gods of myth to life in this classic tale. Vulcan, the God of Fire, wishes to have the beautiful Venus as his bride and will battle strange creatures and fellow gods alike, in his quest to win her. Amazing feats of strength and fantastic fights abound in this tale of adventure and true love," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis. "Vulcan, Son of Jupiter" is a dubbed in English, Italian-made feature. Bouncy, bountiful Bella Cortez and alluring Annie Gorassini are the fleshy film's G-rated headlights, er… highlights.

** Vulcan, Son of Jupiter (1961) Emimmo Salvi ~ Richard Lloyd, Bella Cortez, Annie Gorassini

This is one of those movies that is so bad it instantly becomes a classic fun film. This is a movie where so much happens you won't be bored, it just keeps moving onward throwing monsters, gods, and myths in every which way at such a rate that you have to keep watching because you simply can't believe whats been thrown into the stew. Watch the film, preferably on a rainy afternoon when its the perfect time for a movie.

This movie was mostly unavailable until the 1980s when it was released on video during the "put everything onto video" craze. It was made in 1962 during the Peplum era and then sort of disappeared. It has an OK story but is only 1 h 16 mins long which didn't fit the mould for TV or theaters. However, it has musclemen, great female stars , lizard men and lots of action. There are many good copies on Y/T, so watch and enjoy. Roger Browne told me this should have been distributed better. Larry Anderson.

Exciting and nice looking eyebrows and eyelashes, well done hairdos and make ups of sexy and healthy looking actresses with their short and skimpy skirts, it's all in here. So what else are you looking for to entertain yourself. Just never mind the dialog and acting and you will be alright up to the end of the movie.

Venus, the goddess of beauty (Annie Gorassini) is at it again, cavorting with the sons of mortal men. This causes great consternation for her father, Jupiter. One of Venus' toy-boy titan's, Vulcan (Iloosh Khoshabe aka: Rod Flash) finds himself hurled to Earth, and caught up in all sorts of conflict between gods, humans, and lizard men!

VULCAN, SON OF JUPITER is an utterly preposterous movie that is nonetheless extremely entertaining. From the laughable lizard men, to the world's most annoying "little person", this movie is a riot! The final battle features the god, Mars vs. Vulcan showdown, as well as Venus vs. Aetna! Oh my!

Fans of Hercules, Samson, etc. Will probably love this...