As suggested by Alanlovecraft at the PEPLUM forum, what is the skimpiest PEPLUM costumes? The 1980s dominate of course, with barely there costumes on both the female and male stars. It's no contest. But the Golden era of the genre were also overflowing with skimpy costumes, mostly on the male side which don't compare to the 1980s counterparts but were quite surprising nonetheless. This is not a post on "upskirt" shots which were endless in the old PEPLUM films but not so in the 1980s films.
Rebecca Ferratti in GOR
Sabrina Siani in THRONE OF FIRE
Gordon Scott had the shortest hemlines of any PEPLUM star, with Mark Forest a close second.
Miles O'Keeffe in ATOR 2; probably the skimpiest piece of clothing of any male PEPLUM star
But the skimpiest costumes ever are probably on these fellows in THE LOVES OF HERCULES. Those costumes were re-used in THE GIANT OF METROPOLIS.
Marc Singer wore a pretty small costume in Beastmaster.
ReplyDelete*Theoretically* female costume should be even skimpier! Ancient (and not so ancient in Asia) art -Egypt, Crete, Greece, Meso-America, India, Cambodia... reminds us that the taboo on female breasts is a peculiar idiosyncrasy of the religions of the Bible. Thus in 'peplum' movies set in other cultures (historical or unhistorical) every time the weather is warm enough for the men to go bare breasted, so would do the women also.
ReplyDeleteMay be such is the case in a few *European* movies?
At least in the French 'Quest for Fire' paleolithic women don't wear the ludicrous fur bras of e.g. '1 million years BC'.
@abdul666 - 'female costume should be even skimpier' what kind of straight male (or lesbian) oriented theory is that?
ReplyDeleteAs a gay man I love that in the heyday of Peplum films they were still relatively conservative when it came to female skin. The focus was on the men and male physique. Not that they showed male skin as sexualisation at least outwardly. Then the 70s gave the most exploitative films of women.
I think Bollywood / Indian films and series is right now at the stage where male physique is displayed on screen again not outwardly as sexualisation. There are many mythological films/series where muscular men are practically shirtless throughout. I'm afraid it may eventually go down the route of female sexploitation as India becomes more 'liberal'.