Massimo Serato, Chelo Alonso and Lex Barker in THE PIRATE AND THE SLAVE GIRL (1959)
This movie is sometimes referred to as the worst PEPLUM movie. I disagree. There are much worse than this. It's not 'amazing' or 'wow' but I like it for many reasons. In its original widescreen format, it's beautiful to look at. The cast is excellent. There's a fashion show of sorts in it which is fun to watch and unique. The ending is memorable, if improbable. It's one of those rare movies in which Massimo Serato plays a good guy. Barker is the bad guy but he's really not that bad. Chelo has an excellent dance number. The location filming is top notch. But the scenes in the studios are quite obvious (see above). It had a US and Canadian release! I tried doing a Fan Dub of this but there are two different edits/versions for this so the English audio doesn't match the European print. The movie had an Adult rating in some countries but the makers of the movie wanted kids to see it so they had to cut some scenes (the Fashion show?). Overall, the movie has a lot to offer.
The only big negative is the somewhat slow pace or unhurried feel of it. Sometimes one wonders what exactly is going on since it's so relaxed. And an unimportant scene was taken from this movie for the KOLOSSAL - I MAGNIFICI MACISTI (1977) faux documentary and because of this, as I explained it here, I can't upload the movie to Youtube. So, no, it's not the worst PEPLUM movie ever.
