I watched the Kirk Douglas movie of Ulysses. This is a fondly remembered film from when I was a child. It still stands up too, especially that crazy sequence with the Cyclops. He was pretty scary to me back then, and he still is. He tells Ulysses as a thanks for making him wine, ‘I’ll eat you last’. What a great guy! And Ulysses is so cool about it, because he’s got a plan. As a child seeing that I was so impressed, because I’d be scared shitless. I like how the film puts as much emphasis on the suitors and the homecoming in Ithaca with Penelope and Telemachus as it does on Ulysses’ adventures. Using Silvana Mangano as Circe and Penelope was also a great idea. As a witch Circe glamours Ulysses into thinking she’s Penelope, but he doesn’t fall for it. Douglas’s acting in the Sirens scene was also impressive. It’s just a one-shot of him writhing on the mast as he is tormented by the voices of the Sirens, but it works so well. My only complaint is we never see the Sirens. It would have been cool to show them transforming from beautiful women back into the horrible cannibal hags they are. And Ulysses’ revenge upon the suitors is well-staged and surprisingly bloody and savage. Especially when he takes an axe to the one slightly sympathetic suitor telling him it’s too late for him to repent.