PEPLUM Books

Here are 3 additional books from my library. They are added to the list found at the permanent page. Note that the formatting of the reviews is different since the old reviews were published using the old Blogger formatting which is not available anymore.

PEPLUM Books permanent page

THE ANCIENT WORLD IN THE CINEMA by Jon Solomon

Good:

- Includes Italian productions

- Some interesting features, including a five page historical timeline

- Author clearly likes these movies

- The least expensive PEPLUM book I ever bought: $8.00

Bad: 

- Confusing chapters: categorized by subject which often muddles up things.

- Dismissive of Italian movies

- Terrible cover

- Many mistakes including incorrect photo credits!

I'm glad I have this book in my library and it was so cheap that I can't complain about it but I don't recommend this confusing book. 

GUIDA AL CINEMA PEPLUM by Oscar Lapena Marchena

Good:

- Lists movies by year of release, which gives a good chronological overview of genre and how it progressed
- Book translated in English

- Lists X-rated PEPLUM movies of the 1970s and 1980s

- Chapter on directors

- Eye-catching cover


Bad:

- Horrid page layout and photos look like photocopies.

- Incomplete, titles missing

- Index is incomplete (only titles)

- Book translated in English but I don't have it yet. If I had known the book was translated in English I probably wouldn't have bought this version.

This book was originally published in Spanish. I got the Italian one. I like this book because there are some good ideas in it but looking at the page layout, it was clearly not made by professionals. 



MUSCLES, MYTHS, AND MOVIES by Stephen Flacassier

Good:

- Pretty good overview of the genre

- Author clearly likes these movies

- Includes cool icons or illustrations indicating what is included in movie. For instance, if there are monsters in the story an image of a monster is included within a square with 4 illustrations.

Bad:

- Nothing really bad about it

- Reviews based from viewing poor copies of movies.

- More zine than book

- Incomplete

- Published before the internet so errors are understandable

The author was kind enough to send a free copy. I like it. An update would be fun.