Musings!

Roger Browne, Dan Vadis and José Greci in THE TEN GLADIATORS (1963) 

A popular hit which spawned two other films, which, imo, are much better than this one. The first one is very entertaining and colourful but it uses so many scenes (like the other two films) from other movies that it diminishes the whole production. In a movie which is wall-to-wall muscle, José stands out as the sole female character. This is one of my favourite roles of hers. Roger is fine but his character is hard to grasp/confusingly written. I could write paragraphs about it but let's just leave it at that. And Big Dan. He's always impressive since he's so tall and agile. He did all his stunts and could do all sorts of acrobatics  But his entire presence in this movie is hampered by the fact that his hair or haircut is the worst by any actor in a PEPLUM movie. His haircut in COLOSSUS OF THE ARENA (1962) was also bad but this one is extremely unflattering. Mark Forest's hair in COLOSSUS OF THE ARENA was also bad but not as bad as in MACISTE - THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD (1961) which is a close second to Dan's here. Fortunately for Big Dan, a hairstylist took care of his hair and he looked fine in his other movies.

This screenshot is from a recent nice print that's not fully HD.