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Ulysses

Ulysses

List Price: $9.98
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Kirk Douglas as Ulysses in an impressive failure from Italy
Review: "Ulysses" is an impressive failure, an admirable attempt to bring Homer's epic "The Odyssey" to the big screen that ultimately fails to click. Kirk Douglas plays "Ulysses" (the Latin version of Odysseus, which makes sense since this was an Italian film directed by Mario Camerini and produced by Dino De Laurentis and Carlo Ponti. The story in the film actually begins with the end of the Trojan War and Ulysses' strategem of the Trojan Horse. After sacking the city Ulysses and his men head for home, but the next thing we now our hero is washed up on the shore of an island suffering from amnesia. With the help of a beautiful young princess (Rossana Podesta), he eventually remembers everything that happened to him and his men during the past several years and that he has a wife waiting for him back home. Of course, she is trying to put off all those suitors who insist her husband is dead and that she should remarry. The best idea in this film was having actress Silvana Mangano play both Penelope, Ulysses' wife, and Circe, the sorceress who keeps our hero for several years on his magical isle. However, the English dubbing of the film is painfully reminiscent of a SNL gladiator film sketch and the script, worked on by seven writers including Irwin Shaw and Ben Hecht, is too obviously a cut and paste job. Anthony Quinn is wasted in this 1954 film as Antinous, which will remind you more of those Italian he-man movies than a Hollywood epic. The set designs are quite impressive and the sequence with the Cyclops has some good moments, but overall "Ulysses" just lacks fire.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Kirk Douglas as Ulysses in an impressive failure from Italy
Review: "Ulysses" is an impressive failure, an admirable attempt to bring Homer's epic "The Odyssey" to the big screen that ultimately fails to click. Kirk Douglas plays "Ulysses" (the Latin version of Odysseus, which makes sense since this was an Italian film directed by Mario Camerini and produced by Dino De Laurentis and Carlo Ponti. The story in the film actually begins with the end of the Trojan War and Ulysses' strategem of the Trojan Horse. After sacking the city Ulysses and his men head for home, but the next thing we now our hero is washed up on the shore of an island suffering from amnesia. With the help of a beautiful young princess (Rossana Podesta), he eventually remembers everything that happened to him and his men during the past several years and that he has a wife waiting for him back home. Of course, she is trying to put off all those suitors who insist her husband is dead and that she should remarry. The best idea in this film was having actress Silvana Mangano play both Penelope, Ulysses' wife, and Circe, the sorceress who keeps our hero for several years on his magical isle. However, the English dubbing of the film is painfully reminiscent of a SNL gladiator film sketch and the script, worked on by seven writers including Irwin Shaw and Ben Hecht, is too obviously a cut and paste job. Anthony Quinn is wasted in this 1954 film as Antinous, which will remind you more of those Italian he-man movies than a Hollywood epic. The set designs are quite impressive and the sequence with the Cyclops has some good moments, but overall "Ulysses" just lacks fire.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Kirk Douglas as Ulysses in an impressive failure from Italy
Review: "Ulysses" is an impressive failure, an admirable attempt to bring Homer's epic "The Odyssey" to the big screen that ultimately fails to click. Kirk Douglas plays "Ulysses" (the Latin version of Odysseus, which makes sense since this was an Italian film directed by Mario Camerini and produced by Dino De Laurentis and Carlo Ponti. The story in the film actually begins with the end of the Trojan War and Ulysses' strategem of the Trojan Horse. After sacking the city Ulysses and his men head for home, but the next thing we now our hero is washed up on the shore of an island suffering from amnesia. With the help of a beautiful young princess (Rossana Podesta), he eventually remembers everything that happened to him and his men during the past several years and that he has a wife waiting for him back home. Of course, she is trying to put off all those suitors who insist her husband is dead and that she should remarry. The best idea in this film was having actress Silvana Mangano play both Penelope, Ulysses' wife, and Circe, the sorceress who keeps our hero for several years on his magical isle. However, the English dubbing of the film is painfully reminiscent of a SNL gladiator film sketch and the script, worked on by seven writers including Irwin Shaw and Ben Hecht, is too obviously a cut and paste job. Anthony Quinn is wasted in this 1954 film as Antinous, which will remind you more of those Italian he-man movies than a Hollywood epic. The set designs are quite impressive and the sequence with the Cyclops has some good moments, but overall "Ulysses" just lacks fire.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good transfer, audio in English, Italian and French
Review: (There are also subtitles availiable, extras fall short.) I personally liked the movie, it doesnt follow the details of the epic but delivers a nice and handy short version. Kirk shines bright!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Kirk Has a Hard Time Getting Home...
Review: ...and that's putting it mildly! Here Kirk is playing the Greek general Ulysses who spends twenty years away from the bosom of his family, ten at the Trojan War and ten on an ill-fated voyage back to Ithaca.

Now, when I first came across my brothers watching this video, I couldn't believe my eyes that Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn were in such a cheap-looking movie! Nobody else is an actor or actress of any standing, and the production values are not up to Hollywood standards. Most distressing of all, everyone's dubbed in, including Kirk!

Once I had gotten over all these obstacles, though, I was able to enjoy the movie. Ulysses' adventures are recounted as a flashback as he recuperates from amnesia in a strange kingdom. We see him outwit the Cyclops, go mad from the siren's song, and lose all track of time while being enchanted by Circe. Intersperced with Ulysses' strivings are scenes back at Ithaca, where Penelope has all she can do to hold onto her absent husband's throne from would-be usurpers vying for her hand. A new suitor emerges from the pack, played by Anthony Quinn, and he, like Kirk, plays his role straight despite the film's other limitations. The VERY end, AFTER all the bloodshed in the banquet hall, seems to end abruptly with Kirk and Penelope talking very fast off screen about how they have to make up for lost time. That looks a little, "We have to give the cameras back, so let's end it now."

Still in all, "Ulysses" will entertain you if you let it; it did wonders for me, my brothers, and a two-year-old who wandered into the room and found the Cyclops really exciting.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Don't see it again!
Review: ...it looks better in your childhood memories! Keep it wonderful there!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This is a question not a review
Review: Almost half of world population speak Spanish. Why do not you edit this clasic movie with subtitles (at least) in Spanish?

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not the classic I remembered...
Review: As a child I thought "Ulysses" was a great movie. So was my opinion of the original Godzilla, and Rodan, etc. Sadly, after ordering the DVD, I quickly realized that a child sees things through different eyes than does an adult. The cyclops scene was the only excitement worth noting (despite a terrible makeup job on the cyclops). The film is basicaly a big letdown. The sound and picture quality are very poor; a lot of static in the sound and a picture that sorely needs to be remastered and cleaned up. The film offers 3 language choices (English, Italian, and French) but there are no subtitle options or extras. For the selling price "Ulysses" might not be a terrible film, but it isn't the classic that I remember it being either. Buy it if you must, but you were forewarned.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Probably Kirk Douglas' finest range of performances
Review: At the sacking of troy, we see Kirk the maniac, as the amnesiac he's the innocent; lashed to the mast Kirk is in agony; making wine for the cyclopes we see a VERY rare comedic side; as the beggar he turns philosophic and near-shakespearan, and the finale shows him as a swashbuckler. The film is not so much a sword/sandle epic as an opportunity for Douglas as the center of the work to strut stuff, exhibiting his skill at varying emotions; if you notice closely, the mood of the scene is not determined by lighting or background (both of which remain more or less static all through the film) but instead by Kirk's presentation. One of his very best performances.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Probably Kirk Douglas' finest range of performances
Review: At the sacking of troy, we see Kirk the swashbuckler, as the amnesiac he's the innocent; lashed to the mast Kirk is in agony; and making wine for the cyclopes we see a VERY rare comedic side. All ranges of Douglas' performance are exhibited with each range setting the mood of the scene. The film is not so much a sword/sandle epic as an opportunity for Douglas as the center of the work to strut stuff, exhibiting his skill at varying emotions; if you notice closely, the mood of the scene is not determined by lighting or background (both of which remain more or less static all through the film) but instead by Kirk's performance. One of his very best performances.


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