Photo of the Day

María Teresa Orsini and Mark Damon are lovers in THE TYRANT OF CASTILLE

A good production with some of the usual PEPLUM deficiencies, mainly improbable use of dilapidated castles used as inhabited settings for the characters. I'm sure old, OLD castles existed even back then but I believe most of them were probably empty or abandoned. It's one of those anachronistic issues we see so often in European Swashbucklers. 

Another issue is sorta odd: the size of Mark Damon. Unlike his appearance in SON OF CLEOPATRA in which he looked heroic and powerful, Mark is literally dwarfed by the entire cast in this film which indirectly makes him look small and ineffective. It's an odd thing to see. This also brings up one of my pet-peeves: the head of the leading man always has to be bigger than the one of the leading lady and as you can see in this photo, Orsini's head, including bouffant hairdo, looks so much bigger than Mark's head. It's needlessly distracting. I've seen this in other films and it irritates me. Like in KISS ME, STUPID with Kim Novak's head (also with bouffant hairdo) dwarfing Dean Martin's head. Aside from those things it's a solid actioner.