Sam Pasco and Elvire Audray in IRONMASTER (1983)
The 1980s saw a resurgence of PEPLUM style movies, many of which were made in Italy and on very small budget. IMO, this one is one of the best of that period. Is it cheesy? Yes but very entertaining and surprising solid direction by PEPLUM veteran Umberto Lenzi. Pasco's hair (wig) doesn't really fit him and aside from some flat acting, everything else is good. George Eastman plays the villain (below) and he's great. With his animal helmet and general height/appearance, he makes a formidable bad guy. This movie also has PEPLUM actors from the Golden Era, including Giovanni Cianfriglia (last image) who was still in good form. Giovanni was Steve Reeves' stuntman/body double in many productions. Like so many other movies of the genre, the good girl is blonde (like Elvira) and the bad girl has dark hair. A fun movie to watch for die hard PEPLUM fans like me.
These screenshots were taken from a high definition copy and it's very nice to watch.
2 comments:
Pasco's casting in this has always intrigued me. How does a guy who's only done gay porn get cast as the lead in an Italian sword and sandal film? I know some of the original stars did beefcake shots back in the 50's, but Pasco's stuff for Colt Stuios was next level NSFW content. Too bad the film didn't lead to more mainstream stuff. He did look awesome.
That being said, the animal cruelty in the film has always disturbed me. I know it's just a pig, but they do spear a pig on camera. And I don't know what they did to that tiger to get it to seizure like that, but it couldn't have been good for it. The director does try to pass it off as nothing on the DVD commentary, but....not so sure.
He must've gotten the role because the director saw his porn isn't it? Check out Sunny Leone in Bollywood.
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