Sword And The Dragon (1960)

Sword And The Dragon (1960)

Directors: Vittorio Cottafavi

Cast: Broderick Crawford, Renato Terra, Mark Forest, Gaby André

Goliath and the Dragon (Italian: La vendetta di Ercole, lit. 'Revenge of Hercules') is a 1960 sword-and-sandal film directed by Vittorio Cottafavi and starring Mark Forest and Broderick Crawford. The name of the main character was changed from Hercules to Emilius (known in the film as Goliath) for release in North America by American International Pictures to sell it as a sequel to their earlier Goliath and the Barbarians (1959). American International Pictures had announced plans to create a sequel to Goliath and the Barbarians called Goliath and the Dragon based on a script by Lou Rusoff for star Debra Paget, but the project fell through, so they bought the rights to an already-made Italian film called Revenge of Hercules and retitled it Goliath and the Dragon. American International Pictures also added a Wah Ming Chang stop-motion animation sequence inserting a dragon sub-plot into the story. The dragon sequence is only in the Americanized English-dubbed print, not in the original Italian version.

"The Sword and the Dragon" (1960) is the Americanized version of the  Russian film "Ilya Murometz" (1956) released by Valiant Pictures and  presented by Joseph Harris and Sig Shore. The Russian original, was directed by famed fantasy film maker and  animator, Aleksandr Ptushko, and was derived from Russian folklore. It was  reportedly the first Russian film made in Cinemascope and 4-channel stereo  sound. The Americanized version was released to television in a pan and scan,  mono-only version which nonetheless is fondly remembered by American baby boomers who saw it oft-repeated on "Million Dollar Movie" in the Sixties. Voice-over actors in the American-version include Marvin Miller and/or  Paul Frees (sources differ) and narration is by well-known news anchor,  Mike Wallace. I far as I know, "The Sword and the Dragon" is no longer under copyright and there are at least two versions of it on Youtube, both apparently derived from  the same very poor source. Research leads me to believe there was a version here on the IA which was subsequently deleted around 2008. This is the reconstructed pan and scan version with new opening credits.  Excellent subtitled Russian editions of many of Ptushko's films, including  this one, are available on DVD from Ruscico/Image.

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