Ulysses Against the Son of Hercules (1962)

in this interesting and fun peplum, Jupiter sends Heracles (in the English dub, a "son" of Hercules") to get Ulysses so he can be punished for blinding Polyphemus, the cyclops.  so they spend most of the movie fighting each other and other enemies, plus gaining the whole mutual respect thing that you knew was going to happen eventually.  there's a slight undercurrent to the men vs will of the gods as well, but it is not addressed very much.  mostly at the very end of the movie, but you can guess what that might entail for yourself.
the actor playing Ulysses is Georges Marchal, who is French.  he looks a lot like Kirk Douglas, which may have been why he was cast.  he's quite good in the role, bringing a rather world weary attitude to the character- all he wants to do is go home.  he was quite an important French actor, now that I look at his resume`. Mike Lane as Heracles is pretty good as well, and was probably helped by having such a good actor to work alongside.  he later went on to play the Frankenstein monster in the Monster Squad Saturday morning TV series.  looks like this was his only peplum appearance.


I'm really surprised they dubbed him as "Heracles"- why not just leave the title of the movie alone?  it's a pretty decent movie, and made better by the more unusual plot.  there's no revenge for the hero, and the other one is being a policeman for the gods.