Clip of the week: THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES (1960)

The rebels trying to save their friend (Mimmo Palmara) from a sacrificial ceremony in honour of the evil ruler who the real villains (led by Conrado San Martin, the fellow who leaves at the end of the clip) want to overthrow the evil ruler before the rebels can. Or something like that. 😂 Great action! With Rory Calhoun, Mimmo Palmara, Angel Aranda, Georges Marchal and too many to mention.

 

Portraits

Ed Fury participating in the US promotional campaign of FABIOLA (1949)

HD Alert!

Gino Cervi, as Nero, and Carlo Tamberlani

Scenes from NERO AND THE BURNING OF ROME (1953)

I got a beautiful HD print of this once hard-to-find movie. I was the first to post about getting the movie from a private collector in Italy 4 years ago. It cost me some money. Now it's streaming in Italy which is great! I uploaded this to the list of titles available in HD at its permanent page. I have to do a list of all the actors who portrayed Nero on screen. It's streaming in Italian but my contact in Europe added English subtitles to it. 

 

I also uploaded an image of A QUEEN FROM CAESAR at the same page.

Then & Now: Pascale Petit

Pascale in A QUEEN FOR CAESAR (1962); a recent photo of the actress

Musings!

Burundai (Orson Welles) has the hots for Helga (Liana Orfei) in THE TARTARS (1961) 

I like this movie but it's missing something. It's missing a third act or the screenplay needed to be expanded. At 83 minutes, it's one short 'epic.' It has everything to make it epic but the story and runtime. Imagine Orson Welles lusting after you. Liana must have been happy and confused. Also with Arnoldo Foà.

PEPLUM Movie Poster

Alternate US title of MY SON, THE HERO (1962) 

I personally prefer this title of the goofy MY SON, THE HERO. The original title was THE TITANS ARE COMING or simply THE TITANS, which, in my opinion, should be the actual title in English. 

Image of the week!

Taneal (Helga Liné) condemns her brothers, including Azzur (Tullio Altamura), for going against the wishes of their late father, Nabur the Second, in HERCULES AND THE TYRANTS OF BABYLON (1964)

PEPLUM Movie Quotes

Steve Reeves, Fabrizio Mioni and the cast 

From HERCULES (1958)

Jason: It's the end of us!

Hercules: No, not yet! I should go ashore. I should find the fleece. The people of Jolco will have their rights. I SWEAR BY THE GODS!

Musings!

Richard Harrison, as the Red Wolf, causes mayhem in REVOLT OF THE PRAETORIANS (1964)

The Hero hiding behind a 'scary' mask to cause chaos amongst the evil rulers is pretty much a PEPLUM cliché. In my opinion, the Red Wolf should have been used more in the movie but it serves its purpose. Richard Harrison is pretty good in this movie. It's a solid production but the movie does tend to veer from serious action to slapstick style. This is pretty common in Italian productions but it's always a bit odd to witness. The movie has one of the most crowded casts with over a dozen major characters.

Behind-the-Scenes

Charlton Heston being prepped for a scene on the set of BEN-HUR (1959)

Clip of the week: THREE SWORDS FOR ROME (1964)

Mimmo Palmara, Roger Browne and Mario Novelli in action! 

Blog's 15th anniversary!

October 12 was the official 15th anniversary of the blog! I was on break that day.

So much has happened since and yet I feel it's still not enough!

Original post

SPFX DEPT.

Scene from GODDESS OF LOVE (1957)

This is Praxiteles house. Praxiteles is a famous sculptor played by Massimo Girotti (bottom screenshot). It's a big model. I like the fact that they used a model instead of matte paintings. The trees give it away. This is the only special effects in the entire movie. The model shot is used a couple of times, different times of the day. The courtyard setting is seen below in these shots. Below: Belinda Lee and Jacques Sernas.

 

Vintage Article

Magazine article on THE AFFAIRS OF MESSALINA (1951) in Mon Film publication. It stars Maria Felix.

Musings!

Maciste (Bartolomeo Pagano) is transformed after kissing Proserpina (Elena Sangro) in MACISTE IN HELL (1925)

I love the 1962 version starring Kirk Morris and directed by Riccardo Freda but I also like the silent version, which is a totally different beast. It's an epic film with a 'cast of thousands.' Like the 1962 movie, this one also goes back and forth between the living on earth and hell itself. The costumes are great (look at the details on her costume) and the huge cast of devils/demons surrounding Maciste is quite amazing. The old concept of hell is fascinating to me and this movie, like many genre movies, mixes PEPLUM and Horror. The intertitles are a hoot (below). In clothes, Bartolomeo looks ordinary but once his clothes vanish, his old style physique (aka Real) is excellent and still looks impressive. All the versions I've seen look battered. I wish there was a pristine copy of this made available.

PEPLUM Movie Poster

Belgian poster of MACISTE - THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD (1961; aka Mole Men vs the Son of Hercules)

Cinematic Confusion! The images of the artwork are a collage of scenes from GOLIATH AND THE SINS OF BABYLON (1963). Why? 😂 There's even Giuliano Gemma and Alfio Caltabiano pictured, who aren't in the movie. It's not like there's a lack of great scenes in this movie.

PEPLUM Break

I take a break roughly every two months. My last break in early September was for an emergency so my real last actual break was back in July so it's that time again.

So stay tuned!

I'll leave you now with King Leonidas (Richard Egan) from THE 300 SPARTANS (1962), saying "From this wall, we do not retreat!"

AI PEPLUMTV

STORIED

Image of the week!

Hercules (Steve Reeves), Iole (Sylva Koscina) and Creonte (Carlo D'Angelo) witness the madness of Eteocles, while Ulysses (Gabriele Antonini) watches the aftermath of the carnage of a lion tamer getting killed, in HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959).

Lobby Cards Set: THE THREE AVENGERS (1964)

Original Italian lobby cards set of THE THREE AVENGERS starring Alan Steel, Rosalba Neri, Lisa Gastoni and many others. The set is incomplete but the 6 cards are fabulous. Beautiful collage of action and actors. I love it. These cards also don't have the two annoying sidekicks. Definite thumbs up!

Musings!

Mario Novelli using a man's body as a weapon in THREE SWORDS FOR ROME (1964)

A PEPLUM cliché done correctly. It's used infrequently but enough to be considered a cliché but most of them fail in the execution. Here, Mario is clearly strong enough to carry this man and use him a way to clubber the ones who try to stop him. Mario is one of the many unsung PEPLUM actors who appeared in a lot of movies, even in the 1980s PEPLUM revival, but is seldom credited. I like him. He's a great actor? Not really but he's extremely athletic and charismatic and that often counts more than super acting skills. He was also a stuntman. His biggest leading role, aside from this one, was THE INVINCIBLE BROTHERS MACISTE (1964). The movie is in HD and it I enjoy it in that it's very entertaining but it's a hot mess of sorts. The movie includes a urinating donkey in one unnecessary scene. It also probably has more wardrobe malfunctions and underwear shots, many wearing modern ones, than any PEPLUM movie. And believe me, that's a lot!

Behind-the-Scenes

Tyrone Power visits the set of SLAVES OF BABYLON (1953), a movie Richard Conte and his wife Linda Christian worked on.

Clip of the week: REVOLT OF THE SLAVES (1960)

The catacombs scene. One of my favourites scenes! Nunzio Malasomma did a great job here. With Rhonda Fleming, Lang Jeffries, Burt Nelson, Wandisa Guida, Ettore Manni and Serge Gainsbourg. The scene is longer than this but I'm limited to a couple of minutes. 

New PEPLUM Imagery

With a few prompts, new PEPLUM imagery by AI. 

MEN OF PULP @ X

THE ROMAN SON OF THE SUN

SPFX DEPT.

Dan Vadis as Hercules in HERCULES THE INVINCIBLE (1964) 

Well, Dan Vadis can be considered a special effect to some, no, the effects is the one that's featured in the banner above with Vadis. It's a rocky drawbridge during the climax of the movie. The effects, made with practical models, is very seamless with the full size set. I really like it. There's more to it, including a river of lava and people running across the bridge. Effects work credited to Eros Bacciucchi.

Academic PEPLUM books

One of the most bizarre aspects of the PEPLUM genre is the prevalence of Academic books. Who actually reads them? I'm not talking about compendium books or books that list movies and reviews them. I'm talking about books who quote Immanuel Kant while talking about Steve Reeves. I'll have more on this subject in the upcoming issue of BY THE GODS!

 

99 pages are available and free to read online so I tried reading part of it. The authors describe Steve Reeves and his faux strength. Dude benchpressed more that the two authors lifted in their entire lives. David Chapman has written more books on the PEPLUM genre than any author and yet he hates PEPLUM movies. He needs to find a different subject. 

😂

I have this book. It lists movies but there are no reviews. The author does write about the PEPLUM genre at the start. It's filled with errors. This book cost me $100 bucks. I like the format though.

 

The author of this book clearly had no prior idea who Maciste was before embarking into writing this confusing book. The acknowledgement section is absurdly long.
 

 

I didn't buy this book because it's extremely expensive but reading the reviews, well, I don't want to buy it. Who reads this stuff?

You can read reviews of books at the permanent blog page. 

Musings!

Lang Jeffries and Rhonda Fleming during the rousing ending in REVOLT OF THE SLAVES (1960)

There's a lot of back story to the making of this film, a lot of it not very positive. Lang was a TV star and Rhonda was a movie star. The two married in 1960 in Vegas, just prior to making the movie. They traveled to Rome and Lang sought the lead male role when he saw that no one was cast yet. Lang was Rhonda's third husband. The two divorced 2 years later. This was Lang's first movie role. It's always difficult for me to watch a movie with the leads are married in real life. I love REVOLT OF THE SLAVES but their on-screen relationship is awkward. Probably the film's biggest liability. There's literally no chemistry between the two even if they were in their honeymoon phase (red flag!). 

I like Rhonda. She had great screen presence. Lang had a solid masculine presence but his acting was limited. 

To make matters worse, the director, Nunzio Malasomma, refused to talk directly to both actors during production which is highly unusual. Because of this, Lang claimed he directed their scenes. Nunzio probably had someone else in mind for the two lead roles. The movie was shot in Spain. I'm not sure if the interior scenes were also shot in Spain. Looks more like Italy. The sets are beautiful. 

Lang eventually retired from acting and went into real estate. Rhonda would marry three more times. Rhonda's film career was pretty much over after this movie, with TV roles in WAGON TRAIN, which I recently saw (it was sad...). Unlike many PEPLUM movies, UNITED ARTISTS retain distribution rights across many countries, not just the US which is usually the case. IMDb claims the movie cost next to nothing but the movie has big, detailed sets and huge crowd scenes, which aren't cheap. Many have dismissed it as being an uninspired remake of FABIOLA (1949). I disagree totally. For example, the catacombs scene is excellent and there's no scene like that in FABIOLA (addendum: there's a scene set in a catacomb in FABIOLA but it's just people talking. The one in ROTS is suspenseful/action scene that's really well made. Totally different).

Even with all of the negative stuff, I really like this movie. It's very entertaining.

PEPLUM Movie Poster

French poster of MACISTE AGAINST HERCULES IN THE VALE OF WOE (1961)

A comedy, obviously. The identity of the actor playing Hercules in this movie is/was a mystery of sorts. 

Image of the week!

Sinuhe (Edmund Purdom) sets eyes on Nefer (Bella Darvi) for the first time in THE EGYPTIAN (1954)

MUSCLES Inc.

Steve Reeves and Jane Powell on the cover of THE REG PARK JOURNAL with a behind the scenes photo from the ATHENA (1954) movie. This is the cover of the article I posted last week.

Musings!

Guy Williams, as Damon, is to be killed in DAMON AND PYTHIAS (1962) 

A pretty solid PEPLUM movies which I believe is probably one of the most viewed PEPLUM films because of its accessibility to the general public (kids and adults alike). The production is pretty good: cast, sets, even matte paintings. It does have a kids movie feel to it (the ending is a bit too nice...) but there's too much adult stuff (slow drama) in it to be considered a true kids movie. The movie somehow fell into public domain territory but even so Warner Archive released a great DVD of this. Also known as TYRANT OF SYRACUSE in many countries. An Italian - American co-production. The score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino is very familiar. A silent movie version of the famous story is also worth checking out.

Behind-the-Scenes

Part of the cast on the set of ANDROCLES AND THE LION (1952), including Jean Simmons, Robert Newton and Alan Young.

Clip of the week: SINBAD OF THE SEVEN SEAS (1989)

A beefy Sinbad (Lou Ferrigno). A slimy monster. A damsel in distress. Lasers. What more can you ask for?

Blog's 15th anniversary: Location: Appian Way (Via Appia)

In celebration of the blog's 15th anniversary, I'll be re-posting old posts. Here's the link to the original post.

Here's a post on the popular location seen in many PEPLUM movie: The Appian Way

The Appian Way is ancient road which date as far back as 312 BC. This historical and picturesque road was used in many PEPLUM films, including QUO VADIS (1951) which actually starts with a voice-over saying "This is the Appian way" as we see a Roman army marching towards Rome. I'd love to go there one day.

Robert Taylor from QUO VADIS riding his chariot on the Appian way.

HD Alert!

Gianna Maria Canale in SLAVES OF CARTHAGE (1956)

I recently posted a clip from this movie with Gianna Maria Canale in a Roman litter. The clip was taken from a nice regular Italian print. But I do have an HD print and I listed it at the blog's list of PEPLUM movies in HD but I made a mistake (I have so many copies of it...). I initially wrote it was from an Italian streaming service when in actuality the only HD print is from a Spanish streaming service. I corrected the information. The print itself is nice but it's not a new print. It looks like a second generation print. This pre-HERCULES (1958) movie was released in English back then but now the English version is MIA. Also known as THE SWORD AND THE CROSS.

GOOGLE AI

I didn't expect to write this post today but after Paul sent me this info, I felt the need to mention why Google Ai can't be trusted.

Regular visitor Paul asked about THARUS - SON OF ATTILA after I posted the peculiar 1980s poster I found at the Livio Lorenzon website. Well, the info is all wrong. Here's a screenshot of the AI overview:

 

First of all, the poster from yesterday was THARUS AND ATTILA. The problem with this title is that Attila is *not* in the movie. Tharus is the SON of Attila. Second, Google AI automatically references my post as reference. Multi-billion dollar company uses my little blog as info. Like a lot out there, people or AI, they take stuff from my blog (i'll post about it soon). At least they credited the blog but, thirdly, the problem is that Paul's query brought 3 errors in the GOOGLE AI overview. These errors are NOT from my blog or me.

It says the KEY ACTOR is Dan Vadis (above left). Dan is not in the movie. The main star is Jerome Courtland (above right). How or where they got that info is a mystery. It's a big mistake. GOOGLE AI could have just read the film's credits to see that Dan is not in it.

The pointless plot synopsis below says that the son battles his father, Attila. As I stated, Attila is NOT in the storyline. Second bizarre error.

And third error or contradiction, is in the first overview above says it's a re-release from the 1980s but below, the second overview states that it was release on VHS. That's not what I wrote. Nowhere does it show in the poster or what I wrote that it's a VHS release. When I write 're-release' it usually means it was re-issued in movie theatres. A VHS release is not the same.

Simple errors like this are reasons why AI can't be trusted.