Lombard cinema Guido Malatesta ate the dog on all sorts of peplums. Moreover, with great appetite, generously sharing the best pieces with grateful viewers: large-scale productions, large extras, colorful costumes and scenery, spectacular combat scenes, love and blood in the assortment - what else was needed for a not very sophisticated viewer of the 50s - 60s of the last century! Historical credibility? So in modern similar productions, it is required to look for it with a microscope, and the position of consultant on the set of an already pretty inflated budget was usually not provided.
So in "The fury of the barbarians" historical information is taken, it seems, from a popular encyclopedia, and then quite freely transformed into an entertaining pseudo-historical plot. Maybe in the novel by Guido Mangini, on which the film was shot, the factual situation was better, but in commercial cinema – who cares? Therefore, they fight with each other, love each other, fraternize with each other characters named Laszlo, Katarina, Donar, Nogarich, Danica, etc. Screenwriters godlessly interfere with Slavic, Magyar, Germanic and Christian names, creating a bizarre ethnic monster, the image of which any professional historian would stand on end hair. But to determine the location of the film is not possible: whether the Balkans, or the Danube lowlands, or even the Carpathians. The easiest way would be to send the characters to an alternate world, but fantasy in that era was not as popular as it is today, and the public would not understand this move.
Therefore, the chronological framework, unlike the geographical ones, is defined quite clearly: the 568th – 570th years of our era. That is, the time of the Lombard conquest of Italy. It is there, in Verona, to King Alboin runs the villain Covo, the son of the leader of the Rutar tribe, who raped and killed the wife of the leader of the neighboring tribe Torioka. Despite this crime, the wise elders were able to keep the peace between the tribes, but when a few years later Kovo returned accompanied by a detachment of ruthless Lombards, nothing could stop the war. To the delight of the audience and the ruin of the producers, since battle scenes occupy almost half of screen time and require a large number of extras and appropriate props.
Against the background of constant battles, the action itself fades into the background, although the desire of the director and screenwriters to follow the canons of ancient tragedy can still be noticed. Not fully, of course, only as far as it does not contradict the laws of mass cinema: sharp plot, happy ending, love intrigue, etc. - but still. In addition, the main character, the same Torioc, is far from the historical and adventure standard. He's not perfect, to say the least. Pushing his tribe into a war of extermination for personal revenge, sacrificing for it the people closest to him, repenting of what he did, but not ready to admit his defeat even at the cost of the death of all his fellow tribesmen - what an ideal! But with the traditions of the ancient theater, such an image would be combined completely, if not for one “but” – in the world painted by Guido Malatesta there is no place for rock and fate. The fate of the heroes is not predetermined from the beginning, and the gods have no sense to interfere in them.
They're not actually in the movie. No gods, no God, no religion at all. Warring tribes have neither priests nor shamans. With Covo from Verona comes the Roman Leonora, but not a single missionary. And so on and so forth... Heroes do not ask for blessings, do not perform rituals, do not pray, and generally live as if they were hardened atheists – this is in the early Middle Ages. Sixth century from RH! However, if you look for such blunders in such a movie, then it will be completely impossible to watch it. Suffice it to say that the villages of the warring tribes are not surrounded by fields, their inhabitants do not graze cattle, and the surrounding forests are tiny groves in which squirrels cannot hide. I wonder what they eat? And so on and so forth... Not to mention the fact that forgotten the crowd of Lombards, who came together with Covo from rich Italy, in these poor lands.
Only here peplums, like the one that shot Malatesta, were in fact pure fantasy and all these questions were spat on from a high palisade, which is relentlessly and unsuccessfully stormed by hordes of wild Lombards. Such lombards and appeared in the thoughts of the creators of the “Fury of the barbarians” contemporary audience, demanding, as in all times, bread and circuses. And if the bread was not in the competence of the filmmakers, then they provided a very, very worthy spectacle. Even in modern times, spoiled modern Lombards unprecedented fifty years ago wonders.