50 Warriors Movies

Recently, I foolishly walked into the local second-hand CD store, The Beat Goes On. On the shelf I discovered this package of DVDs, 13 disks covering 50 movies loosely assembled under the category “Warriors”. Of course I bought it, given the sticker price of $21.99 and the resulting cost-per-movie of 44 cents.

Reading through the descriptions of the movies at home, I decided I need to blog about these movies. I’d never heard of ANY of these movies; of the lead actors listed on the back of the package, the only person I’d ever heard of before was Orson Welles, appearing here in David and Goliath (1960). All of the movies were released between 1959 and 1964, except one, Queen of the Amazons from 1947. Most are in colour, though a few are black & white. The majority are also between about 85 and 100 minutes, relatively short compared to most movies of the current era. None are rated.

I’m going to review these movies as I watch them. On a typical day, I get home fairly late, cook and eat dinner, and watch about 20 or 30 minutes of a DVD, as I receive no television signals; the fact I live alone probably contributes to this behaviour pattern. I’ll quote the paragraph of synopsis for each movie (some are hilarious; all are classic swords-and-sandals hyperbole), link to the Internet Movie Database entry, give my own synopsis of the movie, and then provide my opinion, including a ranking out of five stars. If someone can lead me to software that I might be able to use to capture screen-shots (i.e. from the DVD player on my computer), I would be grateful, and I’ll include a few of those, too.

These movies represent what must have been available in local movie theatres in the first half of the 1960’s. This period would have been approximately the time of my parents’ mid-teenage years; if any readers are of a similar age and remember seeing these movies on a big screen, I’d love to hear from you. I imagine that going to the local theatre would have been a popular way to kill time for people of this age range in that period.

This post will serve as the table of contents for this series, and I’ll convert the list below into links as I post reviews. I’m expecting this to be fun; feel free to contribute to the comments in any way you like – I’m especially interested in anyone’s opinion of any of these movies, since (as I mentioned above), I’d never heard of any of these before.

The list is arranged in the (apparently random) order presented on the 13 disks of this collection. Each disk has two sides, “A” and “B”; two movies appear on each side except there is no side B of disc 13.

List of Movies: 50 Movie Pack “Warriors”

Hercules and the Masked Rider (1963), Colour, 84 minutes
Spartacus and the Ten Gladiators (1964), Colour, 99
The Conqueror of the Orient (1962), Colour, 74
The Last of the Vikings (1961), Colour, 102
Two Gladiators (1964) Colour, 97
Ursus in the Land of Fire (1963), Colour, 87
Cleopatra’s Daughter (1960), Colour, 89
David and Goliath (1960), Colour, 95
Hercules Against the Moon Men (1964), Colour, 87
The Giants of Thessaly (1960), Colour, 88
Ali Baba and the Seven Saracens (1964), Colour, 80
The Giant of Marathon (1959), Colour, 84
Colossus and the Amazon Queen (1960), Colour, 84
Duel of Champions (1961), Colour, 89
Hero of Rome (1964), Colour, 87
Thor and the Amazon Women (1960), Colour, 85
Damon and Pythias (1962), Colour, 99
Fury of Hercules (1962), Colour, 97
Caesar the Conqueror (1961), Colour, 103
Son of Samson (1960), Colour, 89
Son of Hercules in the Land of Darkness (1963), Colour, 81
Gladiators of Rome (1962), Colour, 88
Goliath and the Dragon (1960), Colour, 87
Maciste in King Solomon’s Mines (1964), Colour, 92
Fury of Achilles (1962), Colour, 116
Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World (1961), Colour, 80
Ulysses against the Son of Hercules (1961), Colour, 99
Ursus in the Valley of the Lions (1961), Colour, 85
Hercules Against the Barbarians (1964), Colour, 87
Mole Men against the Son of Hercules (1961), Colour, 99
The Ten Gladiators (1960), Colour, 104
Romulus and the Sabines (1961), Colour, 101
Queen of the Amazons (1947), Black & White, 61
Vengeance of Ursus (1961), Colour, 98
Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops (1961), Colour, 100
Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules (1962), Colour, 82
Goliath and the Sins of Babylon (1963), Black & White, 80
The Avenger (1962), Colour, 97
Hercules against the Mongols (1963), Colour, 91
Kindar the Invulnerable (1964), Colour, 98
The White Warrior (1959), Colour, 86
Triumph of the Son of Hercules (1961), Colour, 87
Colossus and the Headhunters (1960), Colour, 79
Vulcan, Son of Jupiter (1961), Colour, 76
Hercules and the Captive Women (1961), Colour, 94
Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon (1964), Colour, 86
The Giants of Rome (1964), Colour, 93
Herod the Great (1964), Colour, 87
Hercules Unchained (1959), Colour, 97
Hercules and the Princess of Troy (1965), Colour, 47