LET’S GET PHYSICAL: ATLAS (1961) *

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As published in my book, Revenge of the Video Vacuum)

Roger Corman is probably the thriftiest person in Hollywood.  That didn’t stop him from dipping deep enough into his pockets to film this sword and sandal “epic” on location in Greece though.  Despite the location work (which gets cropped out anyway, thanks to the shitty DVD transfer), Atlas is one of Corman’s weakest efforts.

Proximates (Frank Wolff) is a tyrant who stops sieging a small town long enough to talk a truce with the town elder.  He says that too many people have already died and suggests both sides send their best warrior to fight mano y mano to settle the dispute.  Proximates agrees, but asks for ten days to find the best fighter.  He goes to Mount Olympus where he discovers Atlas (Michael Forest), an accomplished wrestler.  Atlas agrees to fight and easily bests the town’s warrior.  After the victory, Proximates goes around bossing everyone around while his soldiers have their way with the local women.  Eventually, Atlas has enough of Proximates’ shit and leads a rebellion to overthrow him.

I usually have a low tolerance for these sword and sandal flicks from the ‘50s and ‘60s anyway, but Atlas was much worse than most of the genre’s usual offerings.  It’s a total snoozer from start to finish, and the pacing is pretty much nonexistent.  Just when you think the movie can’t get any duller, along comes one of the most boring courtroom scenes ever filmed to completely take the wind out of its sails.

It also doesn’t help that Atlas himself is a complete joke.  He spends most of his time standing around, and doesn’t do anything remotely heroic until about the last reel.  Some hero.

The battle sequences are lame too.  There are a lot of scenes of people standing and waving swords around that are just pathetic.  Apparently Corman hired 500 extras for the battle scenes, but only 50 showed up.  Even if the extras did show up, I’m not sure it would’ve added much to the movie because of Corman’s haphazard staging of the “action”.

Wolff is pretty awful as the villainous Proximates.  He minces about for 80 minutes and never once seems threatening at all.  I will give him credit for turning the Ham Meter up to Shatner Level, but for the most part, he’s thoroughly irritating.  He does get one funny exchange with a guard though:  

Guard:  “You wanted to see me?”

Proximates:  “No!  I wanted to see your great aunt Helen from Lesbos!”

I did have fun spotting Corman regular Dick Miller as a glorified extra, and even Corman himself in a bit part dressed as a centurion, but that’s about where the fun ended.