The Conqueror of Corinth (1962)

In 146, the formerly strong Greek Empire is under Roman rule but an association of Greek States look to break away from this and take back their independence, lead by Corinth. A Roman Ambassador visits the city to request that the Corinthians step down, but he is attacked by a group of sepratist Greek soldiers and killed, leading the Romans to send forces against the city. Meanwhile, a Roman soldier who was with the ambassador has survived and is looked after by a Roman sympathiser. He tries to leave the city to tell the Romans that the majority of Corinth are against a war, but the scheming Diaeus (John Drew Barrymore) has him captured and tortured...

The storyline here is much better written than most Historical Pepla, it is more drama that adventure, building on political maneuvering and a plausible romance, with a good array of characters who are surprisingly well defined - no mere black hearted villains here. The strong characterisation means that the battle scenes and dramatic sequences towards the film climax have more interest than many similar productions and the film builds to an effective conclusion. The history is decent, although the opening titles mistakenly read AD instead of BC.

Direction is nothing special but the sets look good with a nice selection of costumes despite the film's low budget. The rather epic scenes of men marching and the big battle scene are lifted heavily from Hannibal (1960) and The Wooden Horse of Troy (1961) with a few tight close-ups of fighting Greeks - this does make these scenes very hard to follow and pretty much non-sensical, in particular the sight of Persian soldiers and the complete lack of Greeks in the long shots. However the city battle scenes are mostly new footage and look pretty good. There is a rather typical genre soundtrack but it suits the film fine.

John Drew Barrymore is incredibly good as the slimy and snakelike Diaeus, fellow American Gordon Mitchell gets rather less to do as General Metellus but does walk around shirtless a few times (one for the ladies no doubt) and certainly looks for all the world like a Roman Soldier should. The dashingly blonde Jacques Sernas plays the captured Roman, Caius Vinicius

Conqueror of Corinth benefits from a decent storyline and effective characterisation with a strong performance from John Drew Barrymore, although it is rather let down by the poorly helmed key battle scene. Certainly not among the top rung of Historical Peplums, it is worth seeking out for fans of the genre.

Anyone famous in it?	John Drew Barrymore - American actor who worked on a variety of Euro films in the 1960s.
Directed by anyone interesting?	Mario Costa - a lesser known Italian director who worked on a few interesting projects, including Gordon, il pirata nero (1961) starring Vincent Price and a series of Pepla and Spaghetti Westerns starring Gordon Scott.
Any violence/gore?	Some blood
Any sex?	None
Who is it for?	Peplum fans should enjoy this but it is far from the best genre entry.

Visuals	Original Aspect Ratio - 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. Colour Print quality is generally good, with decent detail (although some scenes are rather softer in particular the stock shots) and not too many speckles, although colours are rather faded throughout.
Audio	English and Spanish mono English soundtrack is fine, although a few scenes are poorly dubbed.
Subtitles	Spanish (based on the Spanish audio)
Runtime	1 hr 14m 17s (PAL)
Extras	None.
Availability	Spanish release. DVD Title: La Destrucción de Corinto
Region	Region 2 (UK, Europe) - PAL
Other regions?	Also available on DVD in Germany - non-anamorphic print with German audio only. As Der Eroberer von Korinth.
Cuts?	Cut status unknown - the short runtime suggests that there might be some cuts, but none are evident. The print used is English language.

The Film

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The DVD

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