Kirk Morris and Barbara Steele with some big snakes. I don't know the nature of this photo. Barbara never made a PEPLUM film with Kirk. I wonder if it has anything to do with MACISTE IN HELL where Kirk does wrestle with snakes but Barbara is not in that film. Here's a
link which dates the photo (April 1962) but claims it's for a film called HERCULES AGAINST THE SERPENT which doesn't exist. It's most likely a publicity photo for MACISTE IN HELL. Funny photo nonetheless.
Does he really wrestle with the snakes in the movies? He wakes up and they are slithering toward him, but they are five miles from where he is sitting and they travel about two feet an hour toward him, so where was the menace? He could have eaten a sandwich and taken a nap before they could reach him. But then he waits for them to arrive and grabs each close to the head and grits his teeth and acts like these larthargic reptiles are actually hurting him, which they obviously aren't.
ReplyDeleteOf every test he did, this in all of his movies was the most tepid and artificial, bar none. Considering how much the producers hacked out of the foreign film for showing in the US, why didn't they leave this out and include the rock and sparklers scene? And I say this with you knowing that Kirk is my favorite actor of them all.
The snake scene is cut in the US print or the Witch's Curse copy I have.
ReplyDeleteI think you're missing the point of the scene. It happens after the girl puts him to sleep with that tainted apple. You can't show him eat the apple and then nothing happens after that, like in the US copy I have. The apple made him sleepy, groggy and lethargic so the slow snake could kill him while he was resting. Fortunately he woke up and that's why he went after them, to make sure he was in top shape and wide awake. The scene is great because it shows the plethora of menacing things thrown at him. It's one of the highlights of the film. And of course it's also a reference to Adam & Eve: apple, snake, beautiful girl, handsome & strong man.