Musings!

Searching far and wide for all things PEPLUM! Luciano Marin and Steve Reeves in GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS (1959)

Notes on MUSINGS! and the blog

The last time I posted Musings!, it was the end of July. I posted stuff every week for several months. I love doing this. Now that I'm back after August's postings, there'll be some changes. Musings! will be posted every other week. And will be posted on Fridays instead of Tuesdays.

As I tested different posts during August, I decided that all the changes will stay. Meaning, on Fridays I'll post an 'Image of the week' to end the week, and the additional new posts of 'HD Alert' and 'SPFX DEPT.' will stay. I'll be tweaking stuff here and there, in a way to make the blog more cohesive.

The blog's stats have maintained at around 1500 views a day. Except for today, which is now over 3000 views. Again, because of the blog's limitations, I don't know where these visitors are coming from.

 

CINEMATIC CONFUSION!

In the Musings! of July 20th, I wrote about the trend of adding a second director, usually an Italian one, to the credits of a movie ade in Italy. This included Sergio Leone added to SODOM & GOMORRAH, a movie directed by Robert Aldrich. You can read or re-read what I wrote two months ago. Well, one of the directors often added as 'co-director' is Mario Bava. Fans of Mario have try to give him more credit than anything else. One movie which is a great example is ESTHER AND THE KING (1960). Directed by Raoul Walsh, a great Hollywood director in his own right, the production was moved from Hollywood to Italy because of a writers strike. If one looks at the Italian poster for ESTHER, Raoul Walsh is credited as "A FILM BY RAOUL WALSH" and then "DIRECTED BY MARIO BAVA." See poster below.

 

So, it's no wonder some of the confusion has occurred on some of these titles. Saying that this was a Raoul Walsh movie but crediting someone else for the direction is, well, confusing. But I believe Bava's name was added to the poster just for marketing purposes. For instance, only Walsh is credited on the French or Spanish posters. No one knew who Bava was in 1960. Putting Bava's name (who was emerging, not established yet) was a way to sell it as an Italian production. At IMDb, Bava is credited for the movie as director for the Italian version. But the Italian version and the US version are the same. More confusion.


STEVE REEVES PIRATE DVD PACK

This Spanish DVD pack is interesting. It has 3 of Steve Reeves' Pirate movies, which includes MORGAN THE PIRATE (1960), SANDOKAN THE GREAT (1963), and SANDOKAN - PIRATE OF MALAYSIA (1964). The pack was re-packaged with a new slipcover. I wonder if it's worth buying. Of course, no English tracks. 


BEN-HUR BOARD GAME 

A Spanish edition is currently on sale on eBay right now. See BY THE GODS!


THAT STATUE FROM THE PRODIGAL...

The last sighting of the statue, from 2020. It's still in someone's yard.

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The so-called 4K prints of HERCULES (1958) and HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959), which surfaced on Youtube recently, barely got any views. Youtube is most likely shadowbanning the channels carrying them.

Speaking of those classic movies, from a friend in Europe, word is that the ARTUS FILMS HD editions of HERCULES and HERCULES UNCHAINED won't happen.

Are these movies cursed?

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Future Musings:

- List of best costumes, for women and for men

- List of movies available in HD / Blu-ray

- PEPLUM Museum?