Musings!

Searching far and wide for all things PEPLUM! Luciano Marin and Steve Reeves in GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS (1959)

The deaths of Haya Harareet and Christopher Plummer

The death of a famous actor who starred in PEPLUM movies is always sad but two deaths in less than a week is depressing. With the passing of Haya Harareet and Christopher Plummer, seemingly the last vestiges of the PEPLUM Explosion of the Golden Era are leaving this world quickly. Will the PEPLUM genre ever be as popular as it was between 1949 to 1965 again? Remember the death of those two actors are for movies made 60 or so years ago. And we're still talking about them. How many movies made today will be discussed 60 years from now? Few if any. Their deaths remind me of a time long gone, not just because of the stories of the movies but also of the great craftsmanship in moviemaking of the 1950s and 60s. 

The never-ending task of 'Identifying actors' is rife with pitfalls

One of the most bizarre things which has happened in the 10 years I've made the blog was someone who wanted to befriend me on Facebook, who said he was a fan of PEPLUM movies, only to lose that friendship after trying to identify an actor. For me, the identity of the actor was obvious from the get go but to the other fellow my answer was wrong, wrong, wrong. He was so adamant that I was wrong that he stopped being friends. The actor is Burt Nelson. He's very familiar, with starring roles in REVOLT OF THE SLAVES (1960) and REVENGE OF THE CONQUERED (1961). 

The top image is from REVENGE OF THE CONQUERED. The other movie below is WITH FIRE AND SWORD (1962). For some odd reason Burt is not credited for WITH FIRE AND SWORD. So, when trying to identify the actor and told the Facebook friend it was obviously Burt even though he's not credited, the Facebook friend insisted it wasn't Burt but an Italian actor.

There's no question that's Burt Nelson. He's still not credited for that movie, including at IMDb. I'm adding this to the permanent page BLOGS MANY FIRSTS. If you haven't seen this page check it out (note: some links within the article might not work anymore).

I'll have more on this former Facebook 'friend' in upcoming musings.

Cinematic Confusion

What is the movie for this Greek DVD from my collection? It's TRIUMPH OF MACISTE (1961) starring Kirk Morris. They used artwork from GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES (1961) starring Gordon Scott. There's also Chelo Alonso from SON OF SAMSON (1960). It seems Gordon Scott is the go to guy whenever they need to substitute one actor for another.

New DVDs / Blu-ray

  

Nothing earth-shattering in regards to new DVDs or Blu-ray.

- Spanish DVD of CORIOLANUS - HERO WITHOUT A COUNTRY (1964). 

- French Blu-ray of MESSALINA (1960), which I mentioned last Friday.

- German DVD of 79 AD: THE DESTRUCTION OF HERCULANEUM (1962)


On a side note, I have some interesting news about some new Blu-rays. Sorta big news. I'll be posting this news in a few days at BY THE GODS!


Have you seen this Russian film? 

Discovering new movies, old or new, is always fun. I saw a German trailer for this movie. It's sorta like 300 (2007) but set in Russia.

Addendum to previous article 

I'm sorting out my hard drives, putting every title unto one hard drive. It's been a very long task and it's almost completed. Oddly enough, while doing this I discovered a couple of titles in my collection I had forgotten. One of which is the US version of CONQUEROR OF CORINTH (1961). In the US the title was THE CENTURION. I have a copy of this and I updated the recent article on DIFFERENT TITLES. You can view it here. The title is misspelled during the opening credits.

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Another title I had forgotten which I found during the cleaning up was this one.

It's a Mondo-style nudie movie with strippers enacting dances set in Antiquity or the past. It includes the popular one I uploaded to Youtube I called 'PEPLUM Interlude'. It's also known as HERCULES OBLIVIOUS. 

I'm glad I sorted out my collection. I'll have some musings on this in a future post.

Future musings:

- New official PEPLUM TV merchandise

- A PEPLUM TV podcast?

- Comments at the blog

- A PEPLUM TV forum?

- Wardrobe malfunction in HD!