A scene from SON OF SAMSON
One of the most tedious dismissive critiques against the PEPLUM genre is that those films were low budget affairs. Does this look like a low budget film? Italian films made in the 1980s were low budget productions but many films of the Golden Era had medium sized budget. Though not really up there in regards to Hollywood films, which averaged between $6 to $15 million, it was normal for Italian productions to have a budget of $1 to $5 million (HERCULES & THE CAPTIVE WOMEN).
I have to agree with you that many of the movies had good budgets.There were many sumptuous sets and the bigger productions had their cast of thousands. One of my favorites has always been TROJAN HORSE. The QUEEN OF SHEBA and FABIOLA were great epics despite being filmed in B&W. CONSTANTINE AND THE CROSS had some great battle scenes with thousands of extras. COLOSSUS OF RHODES another one. I think what helped keep the budgets lower was many were filmed in what is now Croatia as well as Spain and Morocco along with that old standby Egypt.
ReplyDelete