THE MINOTAUR (1961) ** ½

In ancient Crete, virgins are placed in the labyrinth as human sacrifices to the hungry Minotaur.  On her deathbed, the queen reveals her daughter Fedra (Rosanna Schiaffino) has a twin that was hidden at birth, so she wouldn’t become a sacrifice.  Fearing her ascension to the throne is in jeopardy, she orders the assassination of her sister Ariadna (also Schiaffino).  It’s up to muscleman Theseus (Bob Mathias) to protect her, not to mention slay the Minotaur.

Fans of Italian peplum will surely enjoy The Minotaur as it’s chockful of clichés found in the genre.  There are scenes of guys in togas fighting other guys in togas, beautiful women showing the hero a vision in a pool of water, and a villainess who’s eager to marry our hero.  As far as these things go, it’s not bad.  

Fans of monster movies may be disappointed at the decided lack of Minotaur in The Minotaur.  Despite a brief glimpse of his arm in the opening scene, we’ve got to wait an awful long time before we finally get a good look at the minotaur.  (Which happens to be exactly five minutes before the film’s over.)  He’s pretty cool though.  He sort of resembles a school mascot on steroids, and his face is way more articulate than most monsters of the time.

Mathias makes for a decent hero.  I liked that Theseus wasn’t quite as strong as Hercules.  There’s a scene where he tries to bend bars to bust out of prison, but he isn’t quite strong enough to do it.  Also, when he throws rocks at the monster, it’s not one of those huge boulders like Steve Reeves used to throw.  It’s just, you know, like a stone.  While he’s no Hercules, Mathias is likeable enough to have not one, but two sexy queens trying to force him into marriage, so there’s that.

Speaking of which, the movie really belongs to Rosanna Schiaffino.  She has a real Allison Hayes quality to her.  Schiaffino is quite sexy while playing the good girl, but she really excels in her scenes as the evil queen.  Her sultriness keeps the movie going whenever the pacing starts to flag.

AKA:  The Minotaur, The Wild Beast of Crete.  AKA:  Warlord of Crete.