Ancient Fantasies presents
Giant of Metropolis (1961)

Director - Umberto Scarpelli
 

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Plot
Commentary
Facts and Fancies from the Notebooks of Edison J. Nello
Ancient Connections
Cast and Production Credits

The Plot

Obro the Giant (Gordon Mitchell) journeys to Atlantis and the city of Metropolis to warn the royal rulers that their ultra-advanced scientific systems and plans will destroy the continent and the world. Rather than heed his warnings, King Yotar decides to turn Obro into a living scientific experiment in torture. Obro, though, escapes and leads a terrorist rebellion against the misguided King.

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Film Notes

The Giant of Metropolis falls into the cinematic sub-genre of mythological science fiction. As in Hercules vs Moonmen (another Alameda TV favorite), it mixes the elements of sword and sandal epic adventure with sci-fi plot lines and set design.

This particular film is somewhat infamous for its rather sadomasochist "tests" the hero must endure before he proves worthy to save the world from the hubris of its scientific ambitions. And though no gladiator film would be complete without an exotic dance, the performance piece in The Giant of Metropolis, featuring the exotic Bella Cortez, is in a class by itself. In fact, it may be in entire school by itself.

And I Quote

“Your despair proves that you’re still alive and you can still look forward to tomorrow.”

“Lure them into the magnetic trapl"

“You will feel your mind disintegrating slowly, inexorably, day by day.”

-- Ed Schneider - Alameda TV

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Facts and Fancies
from the Notebooks of Edison J. Nello

"On a desert plain, pilgrims walk like refugees from an Ingmar Bergman film. A dying father tells his son that pursuing knowledge is wrong, and whirlwinds of death strip men to their bones. One man, though, has survived, but he must battle the inner and outer reaches of a science that has gone beyond the laws of nature and the minds of men.

On the Lost Continent of Atlantis, in the City of Metropolis, Gordon Mitchell as Obro takes on the powers that be, and suffers for the sins of mankind in a series of torturous tests where he is chewed upon by midgets, poked with pointy sticks, and whipped, fried and frozen. But he survives his tortures and escapes to become the archetypal Hero-Terrorist as the first daughter of the king dances a dance of Atlantean desire.

But the film is really about a King who is willing to risk his city, his kingdom, and an entire continent in order to fulfill his deepest wish to become the father of his own father, for he has the court scientists and doctors transplanting the brain cells from his 200 year old father into the body of his young son.

The meaning of such a desire goes beyond psychology and into the monomyth that joins us all in what's left of this mortal coil."

Ancient Connections

Gordon Mitchell and mysterious Cuban born Bella Cortez can also be seen in Ancient Fantasies presentation of Vulcan, Son of Jupiter.

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Cast & Production Credits

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For more information on

Monomyth...

Hercules...

Watch Ingmar Ozu-Bresson's experimental film meditation on Hercules - Herculin/Feminin (only on Alameda TV Ch. 31).