Thursday, February 20, 2020

By the Gods!

Marcella Petrelli as Cleopatra in THE EROTIC DREAMS OF CLEOPATRA (1985)

Another erotic movie from the 1980s set in Ancient Rome. It's not that remarkable compared to others of the period. It has all the kind of tawdry action, including orgies, lesbianism and, yes, bestiality (2 scenes!!!). Even so, it's fairly tame except for one specific scene.

Kelmis (Rita Silva) tries to seduce Spurina (Andrea Coppola)



Like PEPLUM movies, it contains a plethora of genre cliches, including a dance number (above). A couple, male and female, with the male dancer being more feminine than the female one.

There's no story to summarize here or attempts of being historically correct. It's just a collection of 'sexy' scenes stitched together with almost no drama. In this movie, Cleo is more interested in Spurina, an 'interpreter of omens', than anyone else, with rival Kelmis trying to seduce all of Cleopatra's lovers, including Spurina. This movie would be the last one directed by Rino Di Silvestro, who only directed 8 movies. It's not a bad looking movie but not that memorable.

I have three different versions of this title. One has the runtime of 77 minutes. Another at 88 minutes. Both of these are in English. And the third one is in French and also at 88 minutes. The best image is the one at 77 minutes. These screen grabs are from the 88 minutes one in English (since it had more scenes which are not in the shorter version).

(I won't rate this title).


Like all those movies made during the 1970s and 80s, it uses scenes from big PEPLUM titles of the past. This one has scenes from THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES (1961) and GOLIATH & THE GIANTS (1961). The opening credits are shown over a shot seen briefly in THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (1959; see below), which was also used during the opening credits of SPARTACUS & THE TEN GLADIATORS (1964). And like other such Italian movies, many of the voice actors are the same as PEPLUM movies of the Golden Era, which is always fun to hear.


Above: opening credits of the movie. Below: brief scene from THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (1959)


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