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Summary: Going out in the Sun can give you a Mole,Man!
Comment: "The mighty Sons of Hercules were men as men should be!"
The movie starts out with a rousing ballad about how manly Hercules' sons have all grown up to be. As proof we then see Maciste, having just harpooned a huge whale from shore (!), hauling the whale onto land by himself. Yumm, Breakfast!! Maciste doesn't get a chance to eat his breakfast though, because a bunch of dudes ride toward him on horseback but for some reason they start screaming and falling off their horses. We soon learn the reason for their trouble...The Mole Men! They're a group of strangely clad albino warriors, the super rare kind of albino that was born with actual eye pigmentation.
Herc..er.. Maciste wipes out the baddies with his harpoon and then promises the only surviving victim that he will avenge the poor old guy, who promptly and obligingly dies, without revealing a clue as to the origin or whereabouts of the villainous Mole Men. Maciste of course proceeds almost directly to the nearest Mole Man outpost.
Then he finds a huge black warrior tied to a tree whilst additional Mole Men dance at him in an aggressive, frightening and apparently oppressive manner. Too bad for them because as we peplum fans know, Maciste doesn't dig oppression. He quickly takes them out. He frees the captive, named Bangor, who falls to Maciste's feet, proclaiming himself Maciste's slave for life. Ever the down-to Earth fellow, Maciste helps him to his feet and tells the black man that there are no such things as slaves or masters, Bangor digs Maciste's egalitarian groove and the two become buddies and set off to uncork a bottle of mayhem all over the Mole Men.
Maciste lets the Mole Men capture him and Bangor and is taken straight away to the heart of their underground civilization. They are forced to work in the mines on some kind of huge, crazy looking wheel. It's weird but impressive. This is most important because the real villain of the story, the Grand Vizier or Advisor or whatever, is constantly trying to hook up his bumble nuts son with the smoking hot Queen Halis Mosab. It seems that at every gladiator fight or veil dance the Vizier is bragging about how his son captured Maciste, which becomes a bit of a running joke on the Vizier and his kid since it is very clear that Maciste only allowed himself to be captured.
The Queen is not so much evil as bitter that she can never go up into the sunlight, lest she die if struck by a single ray. She's a sizzling hot Mediterranean beauty, so hot that she weakens strong men's knees at 100 yards. Maciste, while definitely all man of course, is not bested by her charms since frankly, as great as she looks, she just can't compete with him in his own eyes. But really who can?
From here on in you can probably guess what's going to happen. I'll leave you to discover the denouement yourself. But there are good times a `plenty in this peppy peplum. There's a great scene where Maciste beats up a giant rock grinder, and another when we see a Mole Man executed by being left out in the Sun. It doesn't compare with the face-melting scene at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" but it's still kind of cool and disturbing. Maciste is also put through some interesting feats of strength where not only his life but also the lives of his friends are on the line. Only the presence of a feisty trash talking midget could have made this one any better. As it stands it's pretty entertaining.
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