Ursus In The Land Of Fire / Ursus In The Valley Of Lions

Better storyline than most of these movies, but they are all absent of plot and character development. The bad guys are obviously the bad guys and the good guys walk around as if posting a sign, "I'm a good guy. The women beautiful that much is certain and it is usually the same story all the time, but hell I didn't expect a epic. So a long as your expectations aren't high you have fun watching the old movies.

Better than a lot of these B flicks. The story is basically a sword and sandal version of Macbeth without the high language. The script isn't terrific, but better than most. The characters are interesting enough. Ed Fury seems to be having himself a bit of fun as Ursus and not taking himself (or the movie) too seriously. A pleasant diversion.

Good

Okay we all know these movies aren't the best quality ever, but I would at least like it not to be jumpy (the film). This Ed Fury guy, not really a good one for this part. Probably one of my least favorite of the sword and sandal types. Oh, and, come on, even in 1963 when the hero and the really terrible Princess Diana fall and jump into a lake and as they get out of the water their hair is dry as a bone. Even then?

Great movie for it's time.

Only watch this if you like OLD movies.. Sound quality is poor, acting is poor, predictable plot, the best looking guy gets the girl, etc.

Here we have an ancient Greek hero who gained his fabulous strength and courage because lions raised him, rather than because a spark of ancient Greek Divinity coursed through his veins. Ursus in the Valley of Lions At some point in ancient history Generic Power Mad Usurper conquered Generic Greek CityVilleopolis and King Rightful Ruler was slaughtered. But not before Lil' Prince Trouble-Waiting-To-Happen...er I mean Ursus was spirited away by his mom and a couple ladies-in-waiting. Mom and the gang made it about as far as the parking lot behind the studio before they were fallen upon by the Usurper's men. Since they were escaping during a siege neither mom nor her guards thought to bring any weapons and are quickly butchered, except young Ursus, whose horse runs away with him attached. Eventually he is found by a pride of lions. Instead of turning him into a mid-day snack, they decide to raise him as one of their own. This is shown by a wipe type effect where a shot of a lion licking an infant's face (did they actually let a real lion lick a real infant's face!!??) is replaced by a shot of a lion licking a grown and strapping Ursus' face. Ursus spends most of his time frolicking with his lion friends, yanking their tails and shouting" HO SO YOU THINK YOU'RE STRONGER THAN URSUS? HAHA!" Yet the lions let him live. This would have never gone over in my family, not that seeing this movie as a kid influenced me to behave in any like manner. No way. Not me. So Ursus lives a simple life which he really seems to enjoy until one day while out hunting he finds in his pit trap, not dinner, but a slavers wagon, loaded down with some sweet looking slave girls and their slave trader. Ursus hauls the wagon out of the pit and exchanges googly eyes with one of the slave girls. They have a real Hubba Hubba moment and Ursus decides to throw her over his shoulder and haul her off to his cave. The slave trader doesn't want to lose good product do he follows Ursus to the Cave of Lions, where he is scared spitless by a Cave full of lions. He demands payment and Ursus, not knowing what money is, offers one of his lions as a trade for the girl. The slaver is less than enthused until he sees an amulet, an amulet that was given to Ursus by his father right before he died, an amulet that is in reality...THE ROYAL SEAL! The slaver knows he can get a pretty denari for that, so he offers to take it off Ursus' hands. Ursus agrees and off the slave trader goes to sell the Seal in the Big City.The slave girl is charmed by Ursus' simple honesty, massive physique and inexplicably well groomed hair and teeth and decides to stay with him, despite the fact that the only furniture in her new house is a rock, some elk bones and some lion poop.But their rustic happiness can't last forever. Eventually the Royal Seal falls into the hands of the Usurper, who fears Ursus will one day visit some poetic justice on his behind, and sends his soldiers out to kill our hero. They fail of course, probably because ancient despots didn't have access to modern human resource-style motivation and training techniques. They do manage however to kidnap Ursus' lady and kill most of his lion friends with poison meat. (Because lions are immune to arrows)I'll leave the rest of the movie a surprise, although I will say Ursus spends it rescuing his honey and avenging the death of his father, mother and lion friends. He fights tons of soldiers, a pack of trained killer hyenas and a herd of elephants among other things. Although it would have been really funny if the writers added a little more "fish out of water" humor when Ursus was learning about civilization, overall this was a very entertaining peplum. It's absolutely worth your time and shekels.Ursus and the Land of FireIf the Italians had made a version of Dynasty back in the early '60s that was set in ancient times and featured Greek warriors, snakes, monsters, strong men and impaling, it would have looked a lot like this movie. There's all kinds of back stabbing, bed hopping and double dealing here, as well as plenty of action, although unlike Dynasty, there are no catty slap fights between Joan Collins and Linda Evans...:(With all the wheeling and dealings it's difficult to discuss the story much without giving anything away. Suffice it to say that a "BAD PERSON" steals the kingdom from "A GOOD PERSON" whilst wiping out a the home village of a "REALLY BIG GOOD PERSON" who then teams up with the PEOPLE to free the land and dispense beefy, man-skirted justice.Special bonus appreciation points go to Claudia Mori who played the king's niece, turncoat and an especially sultry femme fatale. Ed Fury played Ursus in both movies and he's one of my favorite peplum heroes. He's a big imposing guy but not in a bulky ponderous way that some other Hercules types appear. He actually seems capable of performing some of the athletic action packed stunts his role requires. This is a solid combo of peplum action and adventure. A little more humor would have tipped this into the five star basket, but as it stands we're looking at a more than respectable four star entry into the peplum lists.

1. URSUS IN THE LAND OF FIRE would have been more fun had the film been intact. There were three or four or five cuts from the original print, that disturbed this film's continuity. Also the color--what little there was of it--kept fading or totally disappearing.2. URSUS IN THE VALLEY OF THE LIONS was somewhat better but in certain scenes due to screen reductions, some characterswent unseen as they were in the previous film.

Great