Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords – Premium Peplum: Top Hercs

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 Lawrence Ellsworth 2 comments

Hercules and the Captive Women (Italy/France, 1961) The Steve Reeves Hercules (Italy, 1958) was a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic, proving there was a market for shirtless strongman movies in drive-in movie theaters across America. The Italian movie industry obliged by churning out reams of low-budget sword-and-sandal “peplum” films, many of which had heroes named Goliath or Maciste in their original forms. When they were dubbed into English, for name-recognition purposes most of these strongmen were renamed…

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Premium Peplum

Wednesday, August 11, 2021 Lawrence Ellsworth 3 comments

(Goliath and the Sins of Babylon, Italy, 1963) If you like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing you’ll like. Between 1959 and 1964, the leading genre of Italian adventure films was the peplum, or sword and sandal movie. The fad for these began in 1958 with the first Steve Reeves Hercules film, and there were a whole lot of Hercules films to follow, but we’re going to save those for another day and cherry-pick our way…

Peplum Populist: The Adventures of Hercules (1985)

Saturday, December 8, 2018 Ryan Harvey 6 comments

This is a bit more of coloring-out-the-lines for my sword-and-sandal reviews, since The Adventures of Hercules comes from the mid-‘80s, far beyond the classic era of the Italian peplum of 1957–1965. But it is an Italian genre film about Hercules starring a bodybuilder from the US, which is the most sword-and-sandal situation imaginable. Plus, I’ve owed Black Gate a look at this film ever since 2009 when I reviewed the first of this pair of unbelievably goofy Lou Ferrigno Hercules flicks…

Peplum Populist: Goliath and the Vampires (1961)

Saturday, June 30, 2018 Ryan Harvey 0 Comment

Okay, another Maciste film! Let’s do this!

Peplum Populist: The Maciste Films of Italian Silent Cinema (2015)

Saturday, April 14, 2018 Ryan Harvey 3 comments

Maciste is one of the great heroes of the Italian sword-and-sandal films of the 1960s—but he started as an unusual figure in Italy’s silent films.

Peplum Populist: The Colossus of Rhodes (1961)

Saturday, March 3, 2018 Ryan Harvey 2 comments

The Colossus of Rhodes may be my personal favorite Italian sword-and-sandal (peplum) film. This one has everything.

Peplum Populist: The Last Days of Pompeii (1959)

Saturday, January 6, 2018 Ryan Harvey 1 comment

The 1959 film The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) is the most famous of the many journeys Italian cinema has taken into the story of Vesuvius’s first-century eruption.

Peplum Populist: Goliath and the Sins of Babylon (1963)

Saturday, December 9, 2017 Ryan Harvey 1 comment

Here’s a rollicking and bit confusing sword-and-sandal film featuring a re-named Maciste who isn’t in Babylon and also features footage from movies about Byzantium and the Punic Wars. But hey, nifty death trap!

Peplum Populist: Howard Hawks Goes to the Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

Saturday, September 23, 2017 Ryan Harvey 3 comments

1955’s Land of the Pharaohs is a genuine sword-and-sandal film from Howard Hawks, one of the greatest of all Hollywood filmmakers. It also happens to be his oddest foray outside of his usual style.

Peplum Populist: Short Takes on Three Streaming Titles

Saturday, July 15, 2017 Ryan Harvey 2 comments

Here are three short takes on sword-and-sandal films in the Amazon Video library (all free for Prime members) that don’t pass my normal picture quality threshold, but may be interesting readers who can grit their teeth and struggle through blurred, pan-and-scan transfers.

Black Gate

Adventures in Fantasy Literature

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