Ack wrote:Jake Armitage wrote:Ack wrote:I also like a good (or bad) spaghetti Western, and I sometimes review them. Unfortunately, they seem to get the least attention amongst the few cult fans I talk with, but hopefully they'll get their due once again.
Heh - peplums are even more overlooked.Sones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5L9pA4fqnw[/quote
Yeah, they had an interesting evolution from sword and sandal to sword and sorcery in the 1980s. I tend to favor the later product because of the influence from Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian, but when I want some cheesy fantasy, this is my go-to area.
The original peplums had a lot going against them - (some of them were actually pretty good (the best IMHO was "The Trojan Horse" with Reeves and Barrymore)) since the versions we got were generally really butchered with bad dubbing, miserable quality prints and the reduction from the original perspectives. (Although not a true peplum, the Reeves "Thief of Bagdad" was not bad - the parts were certainly much better than the whole.)
I find the whole AIP "Sons of Hercules" saga a pretty unique chaper in film history - where various and sundry movie heroes became sons of hercules via translation. I grew up watching those on Saturday afternoon tv in the early to mid sixties and loved them,
One of the peplums (I have forgotten which one) actually had the enemy soldiers wearing WWII German helmets that had been adorned with makeshift decorations.
The mainstream movies were doing much better with fare such as "Jason and the Argonauts" and the "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" - even some of the lesser productions such as "Jack the Giant Killer" (1962) and "The Magic Sword" were not shabby at all.