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HANNIBAL, not the fictional fiend impersonated by Anthony Hopkins (and meme’d into actual insanity by a non-fiction psychopath) but the historical mass dispatcher of many thousands (of Romans) from the glory days of Carthage, 22 centuries ago. In this 1959 Warner’s financed/Italian-made/shot in Serbia bow-wow the ancient general is portrayed by Victor Mature. At 46, Vic was about ready to call it quits (after his next, The Tartars, he did: so would you), saying “It wasn’t fun anymore. I was OK financially so I thought what the hell – I’ll become a professional loafer.” Likeable fella, good call. Certainly more likable and interesting than the dourpuss Hannibal summoned for this toga bash with special guest elephants. *

               This is my expression and I’m sticking to it

It’s 218 BC, and Carthage (present day Tunisia) is at war with Rome. Carthaginian general Hannibal leads 40,000 men—along with horses, livestock and battle elephants—over the wintry Alps to attack Rome at home. Though half perish en route, he persists, and during the advance captures ‘Sylvia’ (cat-eyed Rita Gam), niece of Roman senator Fabius Maximus (Gabriele Ferzetti). Of course Han & Syl fall for each other. The decisive (for a while anyway) slaughterhouse battle of Cannae is in the offing: it better be, after all the boring conversations.Bring forth the mob of Serbian extras and let those pissed pachyderms do their thing.

Co-directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (The Black Cat, Detour and a ton of junk) and Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia (lotsa sword & sandal stuff), the jerkily edited saga goes 95 minutes, which is too short for what a historically vital story like this would require but more than enough to sit thru with how it was mishandled here. Terrible dubbing doesn’t help already lousy dialogue, and it’s dull, too, the jabbering not bad-funny enough to get camp laffs over. Add goofy ‘inspiration’ music scoring from Carlo Rustichelli. The Cannae battle is large-scale, neat in wide angle shots, markedly clumsy in the up-close choreography, and there are a number of those leg & neck breaking horse falls to endure: European movies didn’t bother with ASPCA safeguards.

“Let us not fall prey to easy optimism.”

Clinging on the positive ledge: the Alps crossing scenes are visually impressive, if somewhat spoiled by the awful dubbing of “Keep moving!” and sundry variations repeated at least 25 times. Given what men have done (and are doing) to elephants I can see that  childhood’s “eeuw, cool!” kiddie delight of seeing them trample people was the 100% correct reaction.

                       Alps Chamber of Commerce

The Internet Movie Database offers the budget as $4,000,000, but given how cheesy much of it looks we question that amount, which would have been a whopper for a foreign actioner at the time. Another source says $2,500,000, which feels closer to the mark.  Serbia was no doubt glad to provide hordes of extras and horses: where the elephants came from is left to the soothsayers.

Cogerson gives the US box office as $4,400,000, 58th place, better than any Mature opus in years. Though this penultimate swan song didn’t do the star any favors, let’s not forget that ten years earlier his Samson And Delilah kicked off the ‘EAEE’ (Era of Ancient Era Epics) and he was central to smash hits The Robe and Demetrius And The Gladiators.  The vintage ‘coming soon’ trailer for Hannibal is priceless.

Written by Mortimer Braus, Allesandro Continenza (cool name, Signore) and director Ulmer. With Milly Vitale, Rik Battaglia, Mario Girotti (aka Terence Hill), Carlo Pedersoli (aka Bud Spencer) and Enzo Fiermonte.