Photo of the Day

Samson Burke in a oh so brief appearance in FELLINI'S SATYRICON

He's not credited at IMDb but that's him for sure.

After they were PEPLUM stars: Alan Steel

Alan Steel in FAST HAND IS STILL MY NAME(1973)...from the looks of this photo, this spaghetti western is not that different than your average PEPLUM.

Photo of the Day

Mimmo Palmara narrowly misses an arrow while caught in a precarious position in COLOSSUS OF RHODES

One of Mimmo's rare "good guy" roles.

Behind the Scenes

Behind the scenes photo from SPARTACUS of the controversial moment which was cut and only restored over a decade ago. Laurence Olivier is being massaged/cleaned by Tony Curtis and the two talk about snails and oysters. So much furor for nothing.

German pressbooks

German pressbooks (or programs) are some of the best memorabilia out there. They had some of the best covers often better than the original posters. Here are a couple of PEP titles.

GOLIATH & THE DRAGON (or Vengeance of Hercules)

HERCULES & THE CAPTIVE WOMEN

THE SEVEN REVENGES

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA

AVENGER OF THE SEVEN SEAS

Photo of the Day

Pollux (Fulvio Carrara), Hercules (Steve Reeves) and Castor (Willy Colombini) in HERCULES 

One of the many classic scenes in it. I'm looking for a color photo of this scene (can't make a screenshot of it as it's too far away) so I can make a banner out of it. If anyone has one, send it this way. If not, I'll use this image.

PEPLUM Clichés Updated!

Mara Lane is about to treat Brad Harris with some grapes in 79 AD THE DESTRUCTION OF HERCULANEUM. I've updated the permanent page with multiple additions.


PEPLUM CLICHES page

Gina Lollobrigida in SOLOMON & SHEBA

Technical goofs: Taking you out of the film

ARABIAN NIGHTS is one of those rare films were the recreation is almost total and it's easy to lose yourself in it, which happened to me recently but then bam the technical goof seen above took me straight out of the film. The camera wobbled a bit to high showing the back projection screen's edge.

Addendum: someone pointed out that the scene is fine: that what we see is the blue sky and sands...which makes sense...I guess I was reacting to the wobbly rear projection...

Massimo Girotti in SPARTACO (Sins of Rome); this shot is from one of the greatest moments in PEPLUM cinema unfortunately this shot is its weakest point, with Massimo obviously standing in front of a painting which always take me out, briefly, of the film. Aside from this terrible shot, the rest of this elaborate scene is brilliant.

Photo of the Day

A scene from BEOWULF

Where do CGI characters go to die when they're not in use?

They should have been a PEPLUM star: Edwige Fenech

In 1960 Edwige was 12 years old so of course she missed out on all the PEPLUM glory from the explosion of films made during the Golden Era but she would have been great in those Rosalba Neri/Helga Line kind of roles.

Then & Now: Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte in NERO'S BIG WEEKEND (1956); A recent photo of Brigitte

Photo of the Day

Goliath (Brad Harris) desperately needs to save his buddy (Jose Rubio) from certain death in GOLIATH & THE GIANTS

This film has it all, including excellent production values, except for one important thing: a script. More of a collection of PEPLUM scenes cobbled together than an actual story. But I like it. In fact I'm playing it tonight on PEPLUM TV.

PEPLUM-SCOPE

Supertotalscope. Euroscope. Supercinescope. MexiScope! Those are some of the numerous film screen aspect ratios seen on movie posters and during opening credits to compete with the more expensive CinemaScope format, which slowly disappeared from movie screens when it wasn't a selling point anymore.

 (this is from ADAM & EVE (1956))

Photo of the Day

Mylene Demongeot and Jeffrey Hunter are about to ignite their passions for each other in GOLD FOR THE CAESARS

This scene is one of the highlights of this film.

Real PEPLUM Art

Old painting based on the fables of AESOP


Mosaic with painted highlights of Orpheus charming animals

1 year of PEPLUM TV

This month is the first anniversary of PEPLUM TV, the live channel where I broadcast films directly from my collection of 600+ titles. It's been pretty cool for the most part. I don't know how long I'll be able to maintain it but as long as I have free time it should be on for some time. The film which had the best ratings was ADAM & EVE. The screengrab shows 42 viewers but it peaked at around 60 viewers at one point. One of the annoying part of dealing with the Justin.tv site is the viewer counter which is terrible and unreliable. I would often have 10 viewers showing under the viewer list and yet the counter would only say 4 or 5. In fact, the whole site is pretty unreliable (the chat room often doesn't load) but it does what it supposed to do so I'm staying put. Tonight I won't be broadcasting.

Photo of the Day

Dan Vadis, as Hercules, fights with Ken Clark in HERCULES THE INVINCIBLE (aka Son of Hercules in the Land of Darkness).

This is a rare photo of the two fighting together which, unfortunately, doesn't last really long in the actual film.

Movie Poster Mondays

Italian poster THOR & THE AMAZON WOMEN

The Italian title translates into THE GLADIATRIX which is sorta more fitting than the US title (isn't AMAZON WOMEN redundant? Aren't all Amazons women anyway?) but it's cool that there's a few THOR titled films from that era. That's Susy Andersen who wasn't in the other film made with same cast and crew called TAUR THE MIGHTY. Her presence easily elevates this film's quality over the other.

Photo of the Day

Cassiopeia (Polly Walker) is about to be drained of her lifeforce by Hades (Ralph Fiennes) in CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010)

This scene is one of the few that's not in the original and sorta works. But in the end it makes little sense: do you really think Hades himself would bother with such a simple mortal? He would have sent a demon or something to do his bidding. But it's still sorta one of the few cool scenes in the remake.

File Under: Bizarre Translated PEPLUM Title

This Belgium poster translates into DEATH IN THE ARENA, which is as generic as you can get. The English title is COLOSSUS OF THE ARENA which is also generic as you can get.

This is one of my pet peeves with Euro PEP films in that they were often not very creative with titles, translated or non-translated. I mean, DEATH IN THE ARENA can be the title for 2 dozen films which take place in the arena. There's just nothing distinctive about it. And COLOSSUS OF THE ARENA, even if it's better than the Belgium title, is the same thing: the Peter Lupus film, CHALLENGE OF THE GLADIATOR, could also be called COLOSSUS OF THE ARENA because Peter is a colossus and the story takes place in and around an arena. You know what I mean? Anyway, it's probably one of the reasons why the genre gets little respect, because titles are difficult to attach to a specific film or it can be attached to multiple films, except for HERCULES or something like that.

Before they were PEPLUM stars

Primo Carnera and Joe Robinson in the British film A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS (1955) directed by Carol Reed.

Both would eventually appear in PEPLUM epics: Primo was Anteus in HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959, which was his last film)  and Joe would star in several S&S films, including the infamous THOR/TAUR productions.

Photo of the Day

Mickey Hargitay, as Hercules, shows his strength in THE LOVES OF HERCULES (aka Hercules vs the Hydra)

Great photo. While his acting was questionable Mickey's displays of strength in this film are pretty good.

Greek Mirthology

Another great PEP-inspired POPEYE cartoon

Will the real BACCHUS please stand up

The fat jolly one or the super handsome one?

The image disparity is such a polar opposite of each other that you wonder what's up with that. Historians say Bacchus is supposed to be beyond handsome so when did he morphed into the fat jolly one which is now the more popular or the only known portrayal?

Bacchus in FANTASIA

Pierre Brice as Dionysus (Bacchus) in THE BACCHANTES

Photo of the Day

Lucille Ball plays coy to John Agar in THE MAGIC CARPET

I've seen this film only once and it's hard to come by. Apparently, Lucille hated this role so much she thought of retiring. She was also pregnant during the shooting of this and as you watch you sorta realize  this as they hide her behind pillows or always shoot her from above the waist, etc. It's sorta funny to watch...