Me pareció una buena película pero totalmente inferior a la ODISEA(1997) protagonizada por Armand Assante

I rented this movie a few weeks back because I was preparing to honor Kirk Douglas on Hot Toasty Rag. I groaned and rolled my eyes during the first fifteen minutes. The production values weren't very good, some Italian actors had had their voices dubbed in English, and the acting style was extremely dated. As the scenes progressed, I started to get a sense of déjà vu. Halfway through, I started predicting what was going to happen! "If they meet a giant with one eye and get him drunk, I've seen this movie," I said to myself. Turns out, I saw the movie in a high school English class!My teacher had assigned Homer's works for required reading, but when the entire class flunked the test afterwards, she knew something was wrong. No one understood what had happened in the story! She tried explaining it and cited passages to help our little brains connect the archaic language to what she was saying, but again, it went over our heads. Finally, she knew there was only one way for us to learn Odyssey: she showed us the movie.The second time around-once I remembered I'd seen the film before-I was taken on a very enjoyable trip down Memory Lane. "There's the giant! There are the sirens! The pigs!" My review, as you can probably tell, is a little colored by my past. I have no idea how much I would have liked or disliked Ulysses if I'd seen it for the first time last month. You might turn it off and think it's ridiculous, or you might think it's a clear, understandable adaptation of a very dense classic poem. I consider this movie a sentimental favorite, like the first version of The Nutcracker my teacher showed the class in fourth grade. Plus, for half the movie, Kirk Douglas practically prances around in his underwear, so that's always fun.

There isn't too much of Homer left in this comic book adventure detailing the voyage of Ulysses (Kirk Douglas) from the shores of Troy to his home in Ithaca. It's all pretty much boiled down. Gone are such distractions as Scylla and Charybdis and the naughty Calypso. But we still have an extended stay with Circe the witch (Sylvana Mangano), in which Douglas excels at comic self justification. He spends a comfortable night in Circe's bed and the next day presents himself and tells her he and his men are leaving on their ship. Circe slyly informs him that the wind doesn't pick up on this island until sundown. "Well," Douglas muses, "no point in leaving early. The men would break their backs on the oars. And they're all good men. They deserve a rest." So he spends the next five years eating lotus blossoms, drinking wine, and sleeping with Circe until his men go half nuts with waiting and leave him behind.If it resembles a typical sword and sandal epic from the 1950s starring one or another muscle man it's probably because it was made at Cinecitta and used many of the same cast and crew. And, of course, at feature-film length it had to be compressed -- Procrusteanized, so to speak -- in order to fit in as many episodes as it now contains.The scenes back on Ithaca, with Penelope (also Sylvana Mangano) weaving her tapestry and unweaving it at night to keep the blood-sucking suitors at bay, are retained, and they're not as bad as they might be. Anthony Quinn is Antinuous, chief of the suitors, and he comes across not as a greasy freeloader but as a masculine, common-sense kind of guy who just about convinces Penelope that his feelings for her are genuine and that Ulysses, gone lo these ten years, is dead. (It's only just before the bloody climax that he reveals his truer nature.) Some scenes are still fairly powerful, given the cheap special effects. Ulysses' visit to Hades and his encounter with the dead, who try to convince him that ANY kind of life is better than being dead. And Polyphemus is pretty horrible too. And there is a bit of wit built into the script. When they first notice Polyphemus' huge footprint, the men quail and start muttering about "giants." "Probably just a man with big feet," comments the phlegmatic Douglas, the man who does not believe in isomorphism.Alas, the gods are left out of the story, which detracts from our understanding of what's going on and is a betrayal of the movie's Homeric source. I guess if you want gods and goddesses, you have to go to Homer or Thorne Smith.Douglas is an adequate Ulysses. He's pretty sneaky. (The film leaves out the "no-man" ruse he used with the cyclops but includes the Trojan horse.) And he looks right. Except for Quinn, the rest of the cast doesn't really contribute much, though Rossana Podesta as Nausicaa looks cute, in a Cynthia Gibb way.Entertaining version of an epic tale.

Any history class which desires to imbue students with imagination, needs this film in their library on Ancient Greece. In 1955 this movie on the wanderings of the Trojan Hero "Ulysses" made it's way across the country. In the professional opinion of many a history teacher, this movie fell far short of being historically accurate, but in it's basic rendition of Homer's classical, it proved a masterpiece. In this version, fans saw the Greek Ithican King as portrayed by Kirk Douglas. For his fans it was a perfect role and one which convinced us, he was indeed a true thespian. Through his legendary encounters with the Titan, Polythemeus, The Sirens of the rocks, and of course, Circe, the witch, he is pitted against all the ancient Gods. But it is his final challenge by the suitors who wish to claim his wife and throne, which is his greatest threat, for they are led by the champion Antinoos (Anthony Quinn), from the island of Encephelonea. Only through a special contest and with the help of Athena, can he regain his kingdom, his wife and his son. This is a classic in its own right and like our hero, has never been equaled. ****