Hannibal was one of the most brilliant military commanders of all time, so it's such a shame that "Annibale" (also known as "Hannibal") is such a ponderous and awful film. Instead of concentrating on his life and conquests, it centers mostly on a fictional relationship he had with a Roman lady....and a dull one at that.The title character is played by Victor Mature. And, when I think of Victor Mature I do NOT think about a North African military commander! Giving Mature support is a cast of Italians who are dubbed into English. The story is slow and the ending is a mess....nuff said. For history lovers like me, the film is too much fiction to be of any interest and for everyone else it's a slow mess of a film.

If you were to ask what Hannibal is most famous for today, the first thing that would cross your mind is the crossing of the Alps. That is if you hadn't seen Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal the cannibal. It's a feat that excites the imagination of the world and has only really been duplicated one time, by Jose de San Martin taking his army of liberation over the far more rugged Andes in the South American wars for freedom against Spain. It was that which excited the imagination of the ancient world and held the Italian peninsula in terror.But what was the climax of his life is the beginning of the film Hannibal which starred Victor Mature in the title role. The first 15 minutes of the film find Hannibal doing just that with the Romans relaxing their guard and saying he's trying the impossible. After that the road to Rome seems open and unguarded.However then the majority of this film is devoted to a fictional love story between Mature and the niece of a Roman Senator played by Rita Gam. A whole lot of his top people think that Mature is neglecting his obligations to the army and Carthage for her. It's causing quite a bit of dissension and the film would be over, but for the politicking in the Roman Senate affecting their command structure. Eventually Hannibal's wife Milly Vitale and young son show up forcing Mature to make some choices. Rita Gam makes one of her own as well.I would have liked to have seen more the real Hannibal story, warts and all because he wasn't the nicest guy in the world, but a brilliant military strategist who later met up with a better one named Scipio, but that's way after the action in this film.Mature is a stalwart Hannibal and the battle scenes and the crossing the Alps scenes are well staged. But the overall plot leaves a lot to be desired.

I've red a lot about this figure and I got to admire it; I think he was in the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander when it comes to ancient history's generals. The involving tactic he used at Cannae is still studied in Military Academies around the world. He was an extremely clever man most educated for his time and he loved his country. The Crossing of the Alps back in 200 B.C. with an army and 30 war elephants can only be qualified as epic and a true highlight in Military history.The guy sure deserved a better try in films. Italians were never good at making epic spectacular films, but Americans did some very good products and its a pity they were never interested in Hannibal.Edgar Ulmer's film is slow, boring and irrelevant. It starts with the crossing of the Alps and ends after Cannae; that period was precisely Hannibal's most glorious when he moved through Italy (Rome's dominions back then) at will defeating the legions four times and retiring without ever being defeated. The movie doesn't transmit at all the real significance of such a quest against the most powerful nation of the ancient world in its own soil.Victor Mature (Hannibal) was the master of overacting and he proofs it in this picture once more moving around with his usual 60's greasy hairdo. The rest of the cast is average or below average. The battles are not very realistic and the elephants that were used as today's tanks don't even look dangerous (even if you pass over that they were Indian elephants instead of African).Don't waste your time on this one. The great general deserves a lot more and he sure gave a lot of material for a good script.

This film was good, it followed the series of battles from 218 to 216 BC which culminated in Hannibal's victorious, heavy defeat of the biggest ever assembled Roman Army of 80,000 (Battle of Cannae).This film even mentions the siege of Saguntum (Rome's Ally in Spain) which brought on the second Punic War when the Carthaginian senate refused to surrender Hannibal Barca to them.After briefly showing the events of the Battle of Trebia (December 218BC) and the battle of Lake Trasimene (June 217BC) there are political scenes involving both the Carthaginians and the Romans as Fabius Maximus tries to persuade the Roman senate not to engage Hannibal in open battle, rather skirmish and harass.Victor Mature played Hannibal well, but the only element which was wrong with this film was that it did not appear to command the same budget available for it's production as The 300 Spartans or Spartacus (in particular had) so the battle of Cannae, Hannibal's finest hour (or hours) did not come across as the battle would have done.The reason for this is that they would have needed to assemble AT LEAST 130,000 extras in order to portray the events at Cannae. However, they still managed to assemble a lot of extras for the battle scene, just not nearly as much as 130,000 Aside from this minor flaw, I LOVED IT.