Thursday, November 1, 2018

By the Gods!

Duncan Regehr as a gladiator in the mini-series, THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (1984)

I tried watching this mini-series all the way through and I still cannot do it (it's over 5 hours long). I remember watching it back when it was shown on TV for the first time and enjoyed parts of it but not all of it. Fast forward to today, and I still hold the same opinion: the excellent production, even solid on same level but way overlong. Too many dull sub-stories. The fun thing about this is that there are Italian actors who starred in PEPLUM films of the Golden Era, like Franco Nero and Marilù Tolo. The gladiatorial scenes were good but oddly enough, they looked more outdated (or less authentic) than those from old Italian films. Someone should take this and re-edit it down to a tight 2 hour long film. It would be great.

2 comments:

Richard Svensson said...

I probably saw this on Swedish TV when I was a kid, but my memories of it are fuzzy to say the least.
I recently bought a DVD set of the 2007 Italian TV production "Pompei", but I haven't had the time to sit down and watch it yet. It's certainly a subject of never ending fascination.

Anonymous said...

I have a DVD of the Italian production of Pompeii called Gladiator of Pompeii. It runs 187 minutes. It's pretty bad, particularly the awful modern day sequences. Don't get your hopes too high before you watch it.