Asurbanipal (Howard Duff) falls in love with Mirra (Jackie Lane) who is promised to Shamash (Luciano Marin), Asurbanipal's brother . A jealous Shamash bursts and decides to conquer the kingdom of Ninive whose king is his brother . Then Shamash as new king of Babylonia join forces with Babylonian army and helped by Arbace (Sbragia) wages war Asirians but he is double-crossed . Finally , love between Asurbanipal and Mirra originates ¨Fury of Gods¨ and a vengeful Asirian God named Assur sends a curse by means of storms and floods from rivers Tigris and Eufrates .
This sword and sandals movie contains drama , thrills, spectacular battles and hokey historical events. Produced by Aldo Pomilia (Chelo Alonso's husband) who built some sets for two similar films ¨I Semiramide (1963) with Ivonne Forneaux and John Ericson ¨ and this one. Acceptable matte-shots by Joseph Nathanson and passable maquettes by Anthony Margueritti or Anthony Dawson subsequently popular as filmmaker of Italian terror and action movies . Atmospheric score by Carlo Savina and Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, Peplum's usual . The motion picture is regularly directed by Silvio Amadio who also realized another Peplum titled Minotaur the wild beast of Creta¨.
The picture is partially based on historical deeds . Asurbanipal or Sardanapalo was the last great king of Asiria , he was a cruel ruler for whom ¨War¨ was a mean and an end . However , he built the Ninive library where stored the knowledge at that time . It's true Asurbanipal fought (circa 639 a.c) against his brother and after his death (626 a.c) succeeded two monarchs until the Babylonians allied to Persians destroyed its capital Ninive (612). Furthermore , there appears Zoroaster well played by Arnaldo Foa who was known as a sage, magician, and miracle-worker in post-Classical Western culture ,his name was already associated with lost ancient wisdom . Zoroaster sees the human condition as the mental struggle between lie and truth and the condition for Free Will, which is arguably Zoroaster's greatest contribution to religious philosophy. Zoroaster is well portrayed by Arnaldo Foa almost always depicted with a beard, this along with other factors bear similarities to 19th century portraits of Jesus.
Other films about this Mesopotamian sub-genre are the following ones : ¨Semiramis¨ by Carlos Ludivico with Rhonda Fleming and Ricardo Montalban ; I'eroe di Babilonaia(1963) another version of the conquest of Babylonia by Persians , similar to ¨Intolerance¨(D. W. Griffith) and ¨Goliat and La Schiava Ribelle¨ with Gordon Scott and Folco Lulli .
