Thursday, April 20, 2017

By the Gods!

Hercules (Steve Reeves) trying to secretly enter Thebes via a river in HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959)

Whenever I see scenes like this one in old movies, I always wonder how polluted the water was and how bad it might have been for the actors. The story's setting might take place thousands of years ago, when most rivers were clean, but the film itself was shot in the 1950s, when regulations were lax. Reeves is almost always working in and around some river / sea setting in practically all his films. He must have been weary about this.

2 comments:

Richard Svensson said...

I read an interview with Kerwin Matthews, star of "7th Voyage of Sinbad", where he talked about his worst experience in the film. In the opening scenes Sinbad's ship goes through a huge storm. This was shot at night in a harbor in Spain where the ship they used (a replica of the Santa Maria) was tethered. The fire department came out and pumped water from the harbor, spraying it over the actors along with what Matthews described as "raw sewage", including used condoms and excrements. They all had to go straight to a hopsital afterwards and take tetanus shots.

PEPLUM TV said...

Richard, thanks for the info! I suspected it so. Poor cast and crew. Yuck!