Whom The Gods Wish To Destroy - Part I, Part II (1966-1967) Full admission - by no means are we any authority on Teutonic mythology...
......... so we've no idea how faithful this two part epic is to the legendary sword-clangin' tales of Siegried, Brunhilde, assorted trolls and dragons and everything else that make up the 'Die Nibelungen' saga....
After stumbling upon these films on Tubi, we decided to watch it for two reasons.....
#1. - BQ LOVVVVVVES vintage costume spectacles with battles, swordplay, courageous heroes and fair damsels in dire need of rescuing. With real life, non CGI crowds of warriors hacking whacking away at each other with insane abandon.
#2. Another chance to gaze upon the stunning international starlet Karin Dor (of Hitchcock's "Topaz" and "You Only Live Twice"), appearing here at the very height of wondrous, huge brown-eyed beauty.
How could we NOT watch these films?
Clearly, director Harald Reinl had a Hollywood-sized epic budget to work this. Shot in widescreen and filled to the brim with suitable-for-framing gorgeous scenery, there's a ravishing array of mountains, forests, sunsets and towering castles.
And naturally, we have a hot-blooded cast of characters, brimming with ambition, pride, lust for power and just plain lust.
We wouldn't even try to describe the plot machinations here, which rival any daytime soap opera or Shakespearian tragedy, so we'll keep it simple....
Happy hunk Siegfried kills a big-ass dragon that looks borrowed from a Chinatown parade in San Francisco. Bathing in the dragon's blood to render him invincible, Siggy's new superpowers help him to penetrate the forbidden kindgom of kick-ass warrior Princess Brunhilde (Dor), who's in comatose sleeping beauty mode, waiting to true love's kiss.
After a Siggy-smooch gives her a sexy wake-up call, Brunhilde craves some Sig-inator penetration herself. But the clueless hunk, as a favor to the King Of Burgundia, conspires to trick her into a royal marriage by helping the King best her in a mano e mano swordfight.....(with Sig-alicious deploying his invisibility cloak, heh, heh, heh....)
Brunhilde, forced into a loveless union, seethes in fury while Siggy romances and weds Burgundia's royally blonde Princess Kriemhild. This gives him access to the Kingdom's royal pile of gold knick-knacks but that doesn't sit well with the King and Hagen, his resident, creepy villa.in-in-residence......(you know this guy's evil cause his black horned helmet appears welded to his head and he uses a comb-over to hide his battle-ruined left eye.....)
From this point on, we'll make no attempt at describing the escalating pile-up of betrayals, murders, allegiances gone wrong, and battles that leave the landscapes and castles littered with literally mountains of slain warriors.....woo-hoo!
Part II becomes dominated by the still exquisite but now implacably enraged and vengeful Princess Kriemhild (played to the hilt of slow burn rage by Maria Marlow). Joining her to enable her simmering bloodlust is no less than Attila The Hun himself. (that old familiar international film villain Herbert Lom, but here unfortunately dubbed in by another actor).
Even more carnage ensues and by the time the last impaled body bites the dust, this epic finishes up making 'Titus Andronicus' look like a rom-com.
We only wish we had better things to say about Rolf A. Wilhelm's expansive symphonic score. His music pounds away non-stop as you'd expect in such a spectacle, but we didn't hear one single memorable theme that stood out......it's settles for being blaring noise, pasted on top of the movie like extra loud wallpaper. Damn shame.
And now the fair warnings.....for those who find this particular genre stodgy, old fashioned and cornball, pass it by. But if, like BQ, you secretly hold a nostalgic yen for saturday matinee movies like 'The Vikings' and 'The Long Ships', or 'Lord Of The Rings'.....feel free to wallow.
For each part of "Whom The Gods Wish To Destroy", 3 & 1/2 stars. (***1/2).
No comments:
Post a Comment