Great PEPLUM Casts!

Big ensemble casts in Sword & Sandal films are de rigueur, certainly for Hollywood epics. Big casts have always existed since they started making films set in Antiquity. I won't name all of the films with amazing casts now (maybe more in a future post) but here are some of my favorite ensemble casts.

The January banner for the blog, for THEODORA - SLAVE EMPRESS, as an amazing cast but I didn't include a picture in this post as the banner says everything about it.

The cast (and part of the top crew) of QUO VADIS. Except for Peter, everyone looked like they had fun that day. Great cast.

JULIUS CAESAR had a stellar cast. Based on a play by Shakespeare, the film NEEDED a good cast of actors. Though his photo is not shown, this was Edmund Purdom's first PEPLUM film.

-----

Probabbly my personal favorite ensemble cast. With Rita Hayworth, Stewart Granger, Charles Laughton, Judith Anderson, Cedric Hardwick, Alan Badel and Rex Reason and more, the cast for SALOME really clicked together. The screenplay might not have been to the level of the cast's talent but it's quite an ensemble.

-----

The cast of SPARTACUS (1960) is quite amazing as well. Charles Laughton looks really tired in the photo below.

The cast of SODOM & GOMORRAH was filled with Italian actors known for their work in PEPLUM films. This credit shows almost all of them. Add Mimmo Palmara and Rossana Podestà, who are in the film but their names appear in separate credits, to the list and you have one of the most complete ensemble of Italian actors under one film. It's a shame the screenplay didn't have much for them to do.