Tetrady not as good as all the hype

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Mischa Redfern I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

pjb2354 As much as I am a fan of Michael Forest from Star Trek, The Outer Limits,to name a few - this movie is an absolute farce. Frank Wolf who up to this point is really a 3rd rate actor, is the lead bad guy in this movie that plays out like a high school play with just a handful of extras. 1st blunder is when they announce that the wrestling match will begin when the trumpets blow. The trouble is that the horns are never heard. The Wardrobe Designer must have been on break with Barbara Morris wearing shorts that look like she should be on the set of Beach Blanket Bingo and not a Greek sword and sandal movie. The story line is very poor and really makes no sense. Soupy Sales could have played the lead baddie with the same results.

heckles Sometimes you see a movie and wonder if it was made just so the crew could enjoy a six-week vacation in a nice place. Unspoiled Greece in 1961 was probably a very pleasant locale indeed for Roger Corman and friends to take such a vacation.The story is a familiar one: Buff, good-hearted but naive hero is tricked by a more worldly man into using his great strength for his benefit until the hero wises up. This is a plot used in the great sagas of Hercules, Sigfred, and Tom Cruise. Here the trusting hero, Atlas, is invited by a city-state tyrant, Praximedes, to be his champion in a fight to the death so that Praximedes can annex some defiant holdout city.The problem with all of this is: the movie is boring. Very boring. The fight scenes lack drama; the battle scenes look like extras throwing sticks that are supposed to be spears at each other. Michael Forest as Atlas can't act - period. Barboura Morris is the sex interest of changeable loyalties; she isn't bad looking, but she doesn't take off near enough clothes. --Oh, don't tell me it was 1961. "Spartacus" was made a year before, and that had a bathing scene. Plus a reference to homosexuality. "Atlas" was never meant to be a big-budget epic. So no excuses, Roger. This kind of movie, you have to sex up if you don't do anything else.Frank Wolff's Praximedes seems to be having a good time; but rather than coming across as a figurative tyrant (he makes no secret that he is a -literal- tyrant), he seems more like a glad-handing jerk, and a distinctly American one at that.I hope the crew enjoyed their vacation. The rest of us, if we want a Greek vacation, should catch "Summer Lovers" or "Venus on Fire".

MARIO GAUCI B-movie king Corman dabbled in most commercial genres: this was his attempt at a historical epic – the result is one of his worst films! Even if I watched a public-domain pan-and-scan version, the film never promised to be much – it's basically at the level of a third-rate effort from the contemporaneous peplums emanating from Europe! Lead Michael Forest is as bland and wooden as they come; Barboura Morris makes for a fetching heroine, but her attitude and looks are too modern to convince as a woman of Ancient Greece; Frank Wolff, however, is highly entertaining relentlessly hamming it up as the chief villain. The narrative is fairly typical (and inane): the titular muscle-man hero is appointed by self-proclaimed tyrant Wolff to oust power from a rival country; eventually, he sees the error of his ways and determines to turn the tables – with the help of Morris, Wolff's femme fatale-ish companion who, naturally, also has a change of heart because after she has fallen for our man Atlas! I don't know if it was the nature of the print involved or simply the fact that Corman had no money to accommodate sound effects but, hilariously, at a couple of points we're presented with scenes which obviously demand this but nothing transpires: two men are supposed to blow their trumpets prior to a combat and, later, a bevy of dancing girls prance around sans any musical accompaniment at an 'orgy'. The action sequences are equally lame: ubiquitous Corman presence Dick Miller turns up in so many shots at the climactic struggle that one is almost inclined to believe that he won the battle single-handedly! We love Corman for his unfailing knack to spot and promote burgeoning talent but, other than his classic (and classy, for their miniscule budget) Poe adaptations, his own directorial output is invincibly erratic...

John Seal Trust Roger Corman to go all the way to Greece, shoot in widescreen against a backdrop of real ancient monuments, and STILL end up producing the cheapest looking sword and sandal 'epic' of them all. If you squint hard enough the battle scenes might start to look vaguely impressive. Only Frank Wolff's ripe performance as the evil Praximedes provides much entertainment.