Tuesday, August 7, 2018

By the Gods!

Sappho (Tina Louise ; middle right) and her fellow students carry a wounded Phaon (Kerwin Mathews) in SAPPHO - THE VENUS OF LESBOS (Aka The Warrior Empress ; 1961)

This is one of three films director Pietro Francisci made that was released by a Hollywood studio after the success of HERCULES (1958). SAPPHO was released by Columbia Pictures. The other two were SIEGE OF SYRACUSE (for Paramount) and HERCULES, SAMSON & ULYSSES (for MGM). This was quite a feat for an Italian director back then. Though the English dub is still missing for SIEGE, the English trailer shows that they didn't use Tina's voice for it while Tina's voice was used for SAPPHO (thank god!). With this film, Francisci created a world unto itself, which is why I really like it. It almost sets itself apart from the other PEPLUM and yet it's most definitely a PEPLUM. And, yes, there are some wardrobe malfunctions in this.


2 comments:

orsh549 said...

I wonder what happened to the English dub for this outstanding movie. Saw this when it was released in US, but I don't remember the total running time when it played at our local theater. I do have the Italian cut with subtitles though. Does IMDB have a listing of the length of the the US version?

Scott Ochiltree said...


Obviously the young women of Lesbos did not wear bras.