Clip of the week: MACISTE IN HELL (1962)

Maciste (Kirk Morris) vs stampeding herd of bulls!

HD Alert!

The date for the Kino Lorber Blu-ray release of MARCO POLO (1962) starring Rory Calhoun (below) is set for February 07, 2023. Still not available for pre-order at Amazon.com but you can pre-order it at the Kino Lorber website.
 

Hundreds of coffins and pyramid of an unknown queen unearthed at Saqqara

A newly unearthed pyramid has basically changed Egyptian history. This is quite fascinating.

A team of archaeologists in Saqqara recently discovered the pyramid of Queen Neith — who they didn't even know existed until now.

Almost exactly 100 years after the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, archaeologists in Giza made another find that rewrites much of what we know about ancient Egyptian royalty. Researchers have now uncovered the existence of a queen named Neith, who had remained unknown even to the experts for millennia.

Link

Musings!

Hercules (Alan Steel) is informed by Agar (Anna Maria Polani) of some bad news in HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN (1964)

Most PEPLUM movies love big crowd scenes. You know, 'A CAST OF THOUSANDS...". But not this movie. It's oddly unpopulated. It would seem that the reign of terror from the evil Moon Men have scared the populace into hiding but still, some scenes decidedly look un-PEPLUM, such as this one. I love this colourful movie but this aspect (the only one actually) always made me go hmm.... Some will say the movie is a low budget production but there are very low budgeted PEPLUM movies and they still could afford a crowd. I think it was just to create some atmosphere but it's highly unusual for a PEPLUM movie.

PEPLUM Movie Poster

Original Italian poster of HERCULES AGAINST THE SONS OF THE SUN (1964)

Mark Forest was the star but I guess Giuliano was also big in Italy. I dunno if this is a poster for the 1969 re-release.

Image of the week!

Diana/Artemis (Tina Louise) dances on a ship in SIEGE OF SYRACUSE (1960)

MUSCLES Inc

PEPLUM star Reg Lewis on the cover of Muscle Builder magazine. Reg starred in COLOSSUS OF THE STONE AGE (1962)

Musings!

Maciste (Kirk Morris) gets the point in COLOSSUS AND THE HEADHUNTERS (1963) 

This is a cliché of sorts. PEPLUM heroes often seem invincible but they do get hurt, like in this scene. It's either an arrow or claws from an animal. This movie uses scenes from COLOSSUS OF THE STONE AGE (1962) for the volcano / earthquake scenes. And MACISTE - AVENGER OF THE MAYANS (1965), also starring Kirk, uses big chunks of this movie and COLOSSUS OF THE STONE AGE as well. They would make an interesting triple feature. I like it. Kirk is a bit stiff in it but in this scene he's quite convincing. 

Behind-the-Scenes

Gina Lollobrigida and director Henry King on the set of SOLOMON AND SHEBA (1959). Practicing the whip for the scene below.
 

Clip of the week: CLEOPATRA'S DAUGHTER (1960)

Fight between Ettore Manni and Pietro Ceccarelli. 

(This scene contains two instances of accidental nudity)

SPFX DEPT.

Scenes from JUDAS' KISS (1954)

The production values for this movie are excellent. Cast, sets, costumes and special effects. The matte paintings here are top notch. They give the movie an high production feel rarely seen outside of Hollywood or Rome. The credit for special effects is credited to Enrique Alarcón so I'm assuming he was responsible for them. He was also responsible for set decoration.

Has Cleopatra's tomb been found?

An archeologist who has been hunting for the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Antony uncovered a new "geometric miracle" tunnel under the Taposiris Magna Temple (below), near Alexandria. According to many archeologist, finding the resting place of Cleopatra or the legendary couple would be the greatest discovery of the 21st century. It's too early to tell if the tunnels lead to any tombs.

"Whether or not the tombs are found, a thorough excavation of these ruins could tell us more about the mysterious ancient city. The tunnel has already yielded some treasures: pieces of pottery, and a rectangular block of limestone."


Link

Link
 

 

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor played Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the 1963 movie.

Musings!

Marilù Tolo and Mark Forest in THE MAGNIFICENT GLADIATOR (1964) 

I think there's a scene like this in all of Mark Forest's PEPLUM movies. I should do a compilation. Mark died recently but Marilù is still with us. She was 19 when she starred in this movie. Mark's character is spared from being killed by Roman soldiers because he could make a 'magnificent gladiator.' This theme is quite common in PEPLUM movies. Even though we see Mark in a couple of scenes in the arena, we only briefly see him fighting as a gladiator. The action, and there's a lot of it, takes place outside the arena. A Twin Production with MACISTE - GLADIATOR OF SPARTA.

PEPLUM Movie Poster

Italian poster of JUDAS' KISS (1954) 

This is a Spanish production. Though the original Spanish posters are good the Italian ones are beautiful.

Thank you!

 This is a thank you for all of those who donated to the blog and other PEPLUM accounts!

Image of the week!

Emiliano (Steve Reeves), the Goliath, is finally captured after causing terror and havoc across the land in GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS (1959)

Lobby Cards Set: CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA (1945)

US lobby cards set of CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA (1945) starring Vivien Leigh, Claude Rains, Stewart Granger and others. Excellent set with good choices of scenes. It looks opulent as the movie itself. Close up of the main actors' faces would have been appreciated but the set is clearly focused on the splendid of the movie itself. 

Musings!

Genevieve Grad and Ettore Manni are lovers in CONQUEST OF THE NORMANS (1962) 

I like this movie. It uses a lot of battle scenes from THE LAST OF THE VIKINGS (1961) but it doesn't bother me since the movie is well made. In this scene, Grad's character is about to discover her past via flashbacks told by her father played by Philippe Hersent (not pictured). It's one of my favourite flashbacks in PEPLUM movies, with the one in HERCULES (1958) being my favourite. I think the flashback is well handled and adds a lot. Flashbacks are a hit or miss with often being a miss. But when well made they can had so much to a story. I did a Fan Dub of this movie. Also known as ATTACK OF THE NORMANS (US), INVASION OF THE NORMANS (UK) or simply THE NORMANS.

Behind-the-Scenes

Steve Reeves relaxing on the set of HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959). He's lying down in this scene for the movie.

Clip of the week: COLOSSUS OF ROME (1964)

Gordon Scott in brutal action scene (audio is slightly out of sync)

HD Alert!

Not a new release but there's a Japanese Blu-ray of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (1972) starring Charlton Heston and Hildegarde Neil (below).

The info at Amazon.jp says the runtime is 2 hours and 28 minutes, or 148 minutes. From my rundown of all the different versions of this I made last year, this one sounds different. Does anyone have it? It has the English track. 

More than two dozen bronze statues are unearthed

Over two dozen bronze statues depicting Apollo and Hygeia, and more than 6000 coins have been discovered in San Casciano dei Bagni, in the region of Tuscany, 100 miles north of Rome. This is the biggest archeological find of Etruscans culture in the past 50 years. Etruscans migrated to Italy from western Anatolia centuries before the rise of the Roman Empire. Very little is known of Etruscans since almost everything was lost in time, or destroyed by Romans. So this find is great. Is it me but more and more of these stories are popping up these days? 

 

Article

Musings!

Ursus (Ed Fury) is put to a feat of strength along with Princess Diana (Luciana Gilli) in for added motivation in URSUS IN THE LAND OF FIRE (1963)

This scene is great but filmed in an awkward way. Ursus is wearing a helmet in the movie and it doesn't fit him. Ed looked much better without the helmet (photo above) but the helmet was probably needed to hide the face of a stuntman in long shots (below). This movie is quite violent with everyone getting killed left and right. Entertaining but not as epic as the first Ursus movie.

PEPLUM Movie Poster

Original Italian poster of MACISTE IN HELL (1962)

Great poster. One of my favourite PEPLUM movies.

Image of the week!

Goliath (Mark Forest) stops the statue of the God of Vengeance from crushing him to death in GOLIATH AND THE DRAGON (1960)

VHS Covers

German VHS cover of HEAD OF A TYRANT (1959). Fairly standard cover with Terence Hill in big letters. Hmm...Cinematic confusion!

Musings!

Samson (Iloosh Khoshabe) and Hercules (Kirk Morris) team up in HERCULES, SAMSON AND ULYSSES (1963)

This scene is one of the most controversial ones I've ever uploaded to Youtube. The clip of Hercules and Samson battling each other has accumulated over 10 million views but the one thing that draws the most comments is this scene: both strongmen are pulling on a rope with Delilah at the other end. At least 50% of the comments go like this: why are two strong men needed to pull a small woman? I'm like, "Oh, God! Here we go again..." The scene or action of the two men pulling on the rope is symbolic: they're teaming up so they join in in pulling villainess Delilah toward them. It's not complicated but no one seems to get it. I actually had to put a message under the video explaining the scene, which has quieted down the number of people asking the same question. Fun PEPLUM movie.

Behind-the-Scenes

Candid photo of Gordon Scott and Rosalba Neri on the set of CORIOLANUS: HERO WITHOUT A COUNTRY (1964). Below: how it looked like in the movie.

Clip of the week: TRIUMPH OF MACISTE (1961)

Maciste (Kirk Morris) shows off his strength!

SPFX DEPT.

The spectacular conclusion from SAMSON AND DELILAH (1949)

The destruction of the Temple of Dagon is one of the most spectacular scenes in PEPLUM history. One can see how big the practical effects was with the photo below. It's more of a set than a model. As you can see, the set has tiny human figurines. Actual actors were optically added later.

Then & Now: Judi Bowker

 Judi as Andromeda in CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981); a recent photo of the actress

Musings!

An impromptu match between Hercules (Alan Steel) and Samson (Nadir Moretti) in SAMSON AND THE MIGHTY CHALLENGE (1964)

Were wrestling matches/fights in Antiquity cordoned off this way? This occurs in other PEPLUM movies which tells me it's historically accurate. This screenshot is from the recent French DVD which is the best copy available out there but it's still nowhere near excellent, as Alan's face is blurry. This movie is often ridiculed and though there are some scenes that are sorta annoying, in general I like it a lot. It's a parody of PEPLUM movies and I believe a lot of people miss this point.

PEPLUM Movie Poster

US half-sheet of SINS OF JEZEBEL (1953) 

As I've often said before, PEPLUM movies sold sex more than any genre and often got away with it because they're 'religious' pictures. Paulette looks quite different on this poster than the main one. Nice colours. I love the list of SINS on the right. In ANSCO COLOR!

Image of the week!

Mars (Roger Browne) catches Venus (Jackie Lane) stealing lighting bolts on his leg given to him by Zeus in MARS - GOD OF WAR (1962)


Note: there won't be any posts tomorrow.

Behind-the-Scenes

Pascale Petit and George Ardisson on the set of A QUEEN FOR CAESAR (1962)

Clip of the week: VULCAN - SON OF JUPITER (1962)

Venus (Annie Gorassini) vs Etna (Bella Cortez)! 

HD Alert!

A new Blu-ray edition of SOLOMON AND SHEBA (1959) was released in late August. It was first released on Blu-ray in 2015 by Twilight Time but that one is OOP. No word yet on the quality of this new edition.

Amazon

 

Gina Lollobrigida and Yul Brynner as Sheba and Solomon. 

Vintage Article

Old article on the career of Steve Reeves. A Satellite in Permanent Orbit. It has a collage of the posters of his movies on the right side. So many articles such as this for Reeves but one doesn't see any for other PEPLUM stars.