Image of the week!

A handmaiden (Edith Peters) tries to soothe the ordeals of the recently captured Briseis (Gloria Milland) and Xenia (Cristina Gaioni) with perfumes in FURY OF ACHILLES (1962)

BY THE GODS! issue no 5 now available!

BY THE GODS! number 5 is now available to purchase.

It's all about Swashbucklers, pirates, heroes in breeches! The subject is huge so there's a lot of stuff to cover. There are two categories: Land Adventures and Seven Seas Adventures. I wrote that there are two movies that influenced each individual category. 

To read more about it, click on the link below.

https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/3388773

At the movies...

ONE MILLION YEARS BC (1966) playing at the Roosevelt Theatre in Chicago.

Musings!

Mark Forest as Maciste in MACISTE - THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD (1961; aka Mole Men Against The Son of Hercules)

This slightly pixelated photo from the Spanish lobby cards set doesn't look like this in the movie. The scene is there but we don't get a clear view of Mark like this photo. He drinks the water in the bowl which hide his face and we see him from the back. It always irks me when photos from lobby cards set show more info than what happens in the movie. This photo also highlights one thing in this movie: his terrible haircut. Mark looks amazing but his haircut makes him looks like a taxi driver. His hair in this movie is, well, awful. This is not the only actor in PEPLUM movies with a bad hair day. Dan Vadis had the worst haircut ever in THE TEN GLADIATORS (1963). Dan and Mark would eventually fix their hair in future movies. Bad haircut aside, this is one of my favourites.

Behind-the-Scenes

Same behind the scenes pose, different films: Steve Reeves on the set of HERCULES (1958). And Brad Pitt on the set of TROY (2004). New Hollywood even copies old behind the scenes photos. 😂

Clip of the week: CLASH OF STEEL (1962)

Gérard Barray, Gianna Maria Canale and Kirk Morris in one film, CLASH OF STEEL. This is from an old print so sorry about the quality. 

And yes, I know there's a German Blu-ray of this movie available which I haven't purchased yet).

New PEPLUM Imagery

AVENGER OF ROME

MEN OF PULP

HD Alert!

Hildegard Knef and Sergio Fantoni in CATHERINE OF RUSSIA (1963)

Another classic PEPLUM movie, of Russian history, in HD and only available for streaming in Europe. It looks great. No glaring issues to report from this print. It's nice from beginning to end. A fun slice of history Directed by Umberto Lenzi, one of the most prolific directors of PEPLUM movies. 
 

BY THE GODS! issue no 5 now available!

BY THE GODS! number 5 is now available to purchase.

MagCloud often has specials, from 15%, 20%, up to 25% off. Make sure to visit the link to MagCloud to see if there's a special.

Click the link below:

https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/3388773

You can buy any or all BY THE GODS! issues

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Issue no 4

https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/3205057

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Issue no 3

https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/2963938


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Issue no 2

https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/2740217

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Issue no 1

https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/2574706

Musings!

Belinda Lee and Massimo Girotti in GODDESS OF LOVE (1957) 

The English audio to this movie is missing. It has never surfaced in any format even if the movie was released in English in cinemas. It's one of the most frustrating aspects of the PEPLUM genre. Today, some are using AI to generate the English dub. They take the English subtitles and process the dialogue via AI and voila, instant English dub. For some movies, it seems this will be the only way until the actual English dub surfaces but there are a lot of problems with this. I've heard films dubbed this way. It's not very pleasant. The voices are harsh and robotic. The voices also change in mid-sentence. It's one of the aspects of AI that's still problematic: consistency. Listening to a AI voice voicing dialogue changing repeatedly is not good. But the biggest problem is the voice matching the actor or actress. In Belinda's case, she has a very distinctive voice. She's British and I've heard her actual voice. Presuming that they used her real voice for this movie, the AI voice for her simply doesn't match. It's jarring. So, it's a noble idea but there are too many pitfalls and issues with using AI to recreate the missing English dubs of many movies.

Comments are back on...

I'm turning the comments back on. If things get wild and nasty again, I'll turn them off.

PEPLUM Movie Poster

Belgian poster of THE LION OF St. MARK (1963) 

Typically colourful poster from Belgium. I like it.

Image of the week!

Mercury (Gabriele Tinti) consoles Prometheus (uncredited) in ULYSSES AGAINST HERCULES (1962)

Lobby Cards Set: THE SWORD OF EL CID (1962)

Original US lobby cards set of THE SWORD OF EL CID starring Roland Carey, Sandro Moretti and Daniela Bianchi. Disappointing set with  no cards with a clear view of Roland Carey or Daniela Bianchi. The set is missing one card but still. Only Sandro is in this set. Oh well...

Musings!

Mark Forest as Maciste in SON OF SAMSON (1960) 

PEPLUM movies became popular with scenes like this one. The Hero using the God given strength to help people with no power. Feats of Strength scenes were crucial for the PEPLUM genre to stay popular but gradually, these scenes became more rare with movies that were released later during the PEPLUM explosion. For me, this never made any sense. They may have run out of ideas but I doubt it. There are some of the craziest scenes ever conceived for movies so anything goes. But they stopped slowly. One just has to look at Steve Reeves movies and by his last movies, he rarely did any Feats of Strength, which is one of the major reasons he became so popular. The characters in Steve's latter movies were strong men and he fought and battled hard but nothing superhuman. And the PEPLUM genre eventually died. This scene is very brief but memorable thanks to Mark's visibly strong physique. Those arms are thick and impressive. A similar scene was made in SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD (1961) with Gordon Scott.

Behind-the-Scenes

A behind the scenes photo of the QUO VADIS (1951) set. There's Peter Ustinov, Leo Genn, Patricia Laffan and more. 

Clip of the week: ROLAND THE MIGHTY (1956)

Rick Battaglia is Roland the Mighty. Great film directed by Pietro Francisci. From the German print. This movie desperately needs a better print.

FUNNIES!

Pietro Ceccarelli in THE ADVENTURER OF TORTUGA (1965)

HD Alert!

Steve Reeves in THE GIANT OF MARATHON (1959)

A good news/bad news day!

The good news: the German Blu-ray has arrived. It's beautiful.

The bad news: it has issues.

The first issue I quickly noticed: the English audio being out of sync early on in the movie. This was after a quick scan. I'm not aware if there are other scenes but comparing that specific scene at the beginning with the US public domain copy and it's obvious the US version is editing ever so slightly differently.

The other issue: the movie is cropped. One of my sources in Europe pointed this out. Below is a comparison.

Added to LIST OF PEPLUM MOVIES IN HD

The top one is the original framing. The below image is from the German Blu-ray. The German BD is more zoomed in. They had to cropped the top, bottom and sides to zoom it in.

It's still nice but not the original framing. And, yes, it's one gorgeous and excellent film!

Sergio Fantoni, Ivo Garrani, Mylène Demongeot and Steve Reeves

 

Steve Reeves and Alberto Lupo

Musings!

Gianna Maria Canale and Moira Orfei are prisoners on a pirate ship in QUEEN OF THE PIRATES (1960)

One of the fun aspects of Italian Swashbucklers are the number of movies with female leads. It dates back all the way to the silent era in Italy. A sequel was made after this, TIGER OF THE SEVEN SEAS (1962), which, IMO, is better than this one. Not that there's anything bad with it. It's very good. Cast, production, etc. All excellent. But TIGER blows it away. The reason? I wrote about it in the upcoming issue of BY THE GODS! magazine (explanation of what's going with the magazine tomorrow). It's always fun to see Queens of PEPLUM movies together and seeing Gianna with Moira is, as a PEPLUM fan, a treat. They should have made more films together. 

PEPLUM Movie Poster

Original Italian poster of AVENGER OF THE SEVEN SEAS (1962) 

Beautiful poster even there really isn't such a scene like that in the movie. It's a work of art though.

PEPLUM Break

I take a break roughly every two months so it's that time again. 

So stay tuned!

I'll leave you now with King Leonidas (Richard Egan) from THE 300 SPARTANS (1962), saying "From this wall, we do not retreat!"

Peplum Public Discussion

Comments are open in this post. You have something to mention about this week's posts? Or something else. This is the only place you can voice your opinion. Comments are curated therefore any bad comment won't be published! Be respectful!

Image of the week!

Catherine (Hildegard Knef) plays Venus in a play, helped by Count Poniatowski (Giacomo Rossi Stuart), who is after her, in CATHERINE OF RUSSIA (1963)

At the movies...

THE VIKINGS (1958) playing at the Astor Theatre in New York City.