Clip of the week: GOLIATH AND THE DRAGON (1960)

An angry Goliath (Mark Forest) is in the mood for some renovations... 

Blog's 15th anniversary: STAR WARS, a PEPLUM in space

In celebration of the blog's 15th anniversary, I'm re-posting old posts. Here's one popular post I wrote back in 2011. Here's the link to the post.

Photographic proof that STAR WARS was basically a PEPLUM set in a science-fiction/outer space setting. I saw STAR WARS before any Sword & Sandal films and as I was watching the 300 or so films one after the other I couldn't believe how much of the elements in the STAR WARS films were inspired or directly lifted from Italian Sword & Sandal films, which at the time and for the most part even today are still frowned upon. There are so many elements that I won't mention all of them but here's a bunch just to give you an idea.

I added some screenshot of Google searches of how STAR WARS was inspired by Ancient Rome history and directly by the PEPLUM genre. I wrote it 14 years ago, way before anyone else.

Opening credits that sets up the storyline :

From REVENGE OF HERCULES

Desert locations, with bones of dead creatures :

GOLIATH AND THE GIANTS

GOLIATH AND THE GIANTS

Wise Old Man

WAR GODS OF BABYLON

Evil Ruler on his throne

HEROD THE GREAT

Disposable soldiers of Evil Ruler

HERCULES & THE CAPTIVE WOMEN

Resourceful little people always on the side of good

GOLIATH & THE SINS OF BABYLON

Donut-style hair fashion statement

THEODORA ~ SLAVE EMPRESS

Cheesecake (there's very little Beefcake in Star Wars films)

Publicity shot of Rhonda Fleming for SERPENT OF THE NILE

Torture (what's a PEPLUM film without a torture scene?)

GOLIATH AND THE SINS OF BABYLON

Sword fights (hence the term Sword & Sandal)

FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Council chambers

HEROD THE GREAT

Crushing walls of death

FURY OF HERCULES

The annoying sidekick

GLADIATOR OF ROME

Regular reader to the blog Paul sent me this. 

 

SPFX DEPT.

Scenes from ANDROCLES AND THE LION (1952)

This Black & White production has many excellent special effects throughout the movie. Linwood G. Dunn is credited for Visual Effects. I assume that's he's the one responsible for the matte paintings. William Cameron Menzies is also credited as part of the production design. Menzies was brilliant. The people in the scene below walk. This is one of my irks about matte works in other movies.

 

Vintage Article

An old Spanish article on some publicity campaign for THE GIANT OF MARATHON (1959) with Steve Reeves and Mylène Demongeot in costume.

 

Musing!

Gianna Maria Canale in THE WARRIOR AND THE SLAVE GIRL (1958) 

Personally, I love the movie's production, cast, etc. The story? Meh. It's not a compelling story. The direction, by Vittorio Cottafavi, is better than the script. The storyline, of her character poisoning a kid, was really bad. It made her character unredeemable.  Gianna was eventually typecast playing evil characters after this role.  Aside from a couple of titles, she appeared in a string of movies as the bad girl. It's a shame because she was such a good actress and could play other types of roles.

PEPLUM Movie Poster

German poster of REVENGE OF THE BARBARIANS (1960)

This is the 1972 re-release. In and around the mini PEPLUM explosion of 1973, old movies were re-released, including this one. In Germany at least.

Image of the week!

Romulus (Steve Reeves) battles with King Tatius (Massimo Girotti) in DUEL OF THE TITANS (1961)

Spotlight: THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (1932)

A visual spotlight on the pre-code epic directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Fredric March, Elissa Landi, Charles Laughton and Claudette Colbert.

 

 

 

IMO, this is DeMille's best film. 

What's the next movie that should have the PEPLUM TV spotlight for the month of June?