B.C.


I've posted elsewhere (here, for instance) on the impact of peplum (sword-and-sandal) movies on my budding sexuality. As a kid, I thought the only thing wrong with these films, most of them European imports, poorly dubbed in English, was that there was too much story and dialogue. I wanted to see muscle and shirtless fights, and I would have been happy had the entire 75-minute "epic" consisted of nothing but. On that point, I haven't changed.

Below are some interesting fight scenes from the genre - with notes.



The White Warrior  (1959)

This post's title notwithstanding, The White Warrior is set in the 19th century A.D. and was adapted (loosely, I'm assuming) from a story by Leo Tolstoy. Steve Reeves warming up for the fight still sends shivers up my spine. As in most of these films, the fight is far too short and could be a tad more convincing. I do not believe that pin fall. If I had played his opponent, I would have insisted that Steve press his chest to mine far longer - for the sake of realism.




The Giant of Marathon (1959)

This is another vehicle for Reeves, considered by many (me included) as his best film. The light and shadow, camera angles, and closeups do wonders for putting that bear hug over in the second GIF. Reeves voices an opinion that the fighters in the first GIF are not true wrestlers. (The GIF does not do justice to this first fight, which is awesome.) The big brute who won picks a fight with Reeves and soon regrets it. The movie's climax is a sea battle, including seemingly hundreds of extras fighting each other underwater, easily the most ambitious underwater fight scene pre-Thunderball.



Esther and the King (1960)

This is the only American peplum picture in the lot. You can tell it's American because it's based on the bible. I'm kidding, maybe. A slave moisturizes Richard Egan ("the King") before he gets in a fun fight with one of his more athletically inclined slaves. The guy lets the King win too easily, so Egan tells one of the other wrestlers to punish him. In other words, we're looking at the Trump of the ancient world (there were a lot of them, just not as dumpy looking as ours).




Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon (1964)

Peter Lupus, of Muscle Beach Party and the Mission: Impossible TV series, plays Hercules. In this scene, he's invited to prove himself against six of Babylon's best fighters, but, of course, the fight is rigged as one of the wrestlers pulls out a foreign object, a weapon that looks like a caveman's club with steak knives sticking out of it. The hot bodybuilder you see on the far left side of the frame for the first half of the second GIF is so hot I can barely pay attention to the main action. His name is Pietro Torresi (as I tell my students, there are advantages to knowing how to do online research).





Revenge of the Gladiators (1964)

Mickey Hargitay (the 1955 Mr. Universe and shortly thereafter Mr. Jayne Mansfield - he's Mariska's dad) is the putative star of this movie, another Spartacus ripoff, but it's the uncredited Jeff Cameron, whom we see here, who steals the movie for me. He shines as an unnamed gladiator in this excellently staged (and totally h-o-t) fight scene. He went on to act in a number of spaghetti westerns in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Despite the WASPy stage name, Jeff is Goffredo and Italian.



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Comments

  1. Great set of sword-and-sandal movies to share clips from. Steve Reeves was/is definitely a favorite of mine. Peter Lupus, Gordon Scott, Mickey Hargitay, and so many others, looked great in these old films. Like you, I feel the story and dialogue sometimes drags, and I wish the flex-and-fight scenes would be greater in number and length. Thanks for sharing these gems.

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