Event

KINDAR THE INVULNERABLE

Dir. Osvaldo Civirani, 1965
Egypt/Italy, 97 min
In English (dubbed from Italian)

In the wake of Steve Reeves in HERCULES, Italian directors set out to find every musclebound New York lug they could put in body oil and beat up spear-carriers, and so Mark Forest (known to his family in Brooklyn as Lou Degni), after stints as a gym owner, a bodybuilder and a member of Mae West's troupe of musclemen, became quite the rage in Rome. From 1960 to 1965 he did eleven peplum films, concluding with KINDAR THE INVULNERABLE.

The sword and sandal film will always be linked to Italy, but there's something special about seeing a film set elsewhere, in this case Egypt (as the closing shots at Luxor will make clear). Like many blues singers to come, lightning struck the birthing bed on the day Kindar was born, the sultan's son, destined for greatness -- until Lil' Kindar gets Kindarnapped by a desert bandit who raises him as his own! Kindar's troubled youth takes a drastic turn when, about to raid a village, he falls for a villager named Kira (and who could blame him, as it's none other than Rosalba Neri (LADY FRANKENSTEIN, Franco fave MARQUIS DE SADE'S JUSTINE, THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT)!

With plenty of action and some really beautiful set pieces (Kindar sneaking into the city at night is particularly lovely), KINDAR does stray a bit closer to a superhero film than a traditional peplum, but so what? Not even an iron maiden can stop him! Arguably Mark Forest's best film, it's an excellent close to this summer's installment of ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?