Sword and sandal 

D. W. Griffith set out to depict the splendor of ancient Babylon in Intolerance.
This poster from a 1961 Maciste film illustrates many people's expectations from films of this genre.

Sword and sandal films, or pepla (singular=peplum) are a genre of adventure or fantasy films that have subjects set in Biblical or classical antiquity, often with contrived plots based very loosely on mythology or history. Most movies based on Greco-Roman history and mythology, or the surrounding cultures of the same era (Egyptians, Assyrians, Etruscans, Minoans), etc. are sword and sandal epic films.

Broadly considered, this category could encompass such diverse Period films as Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, Titus, Gladiator, King Arthur or The Ten Commandments. In this sense, it is one of the oldest movie genres; the original Ben-Hur was made by Sidney Olcott in 1907; the 1914 silent film Cabiria was important in the development of the art of cinematography, and was one of the first sword-and-sandal films to make use of a massively muscled actor, Bartolomeo Pagano who appeared in least 26 sequels over the period from 1915 through 1926.

More specifically, however, the sword and sandal film genre usually refers to a low-budget Italian movie on a gladiatorial, Biblical or mythological subject, often with a professional bodybuilder in the principal role; the genre occupied much of the popular segment of Italy's movie industry from 1958–1964, before the creation of the spaghetti western. Several famous Italian directors such as Mario Bava and Sergio Leone got their start in the genre as well.

Contents

Typical subjects

Gladiators were perennial favorite subjects, as were the adventures of Hercules, Goliath, Samson, Ursus, Jason and the Argonauts, or Italy's legendary strongman Maciste. The fad began with the 1958 release of Hercules, starring American bodybuilder Steve Reeves. This spawned the 1959 sequel Hercules Unchained, and literally dozens of low-budget imitations starring other bodybuilder stars such as Reg Park, Gordon Scott, Mark Forest, Brad Harris, Dan Vadis, and Alan Steel. European audiences tended to prefer an Anglo-American in the lead, and Italian bodybuilders would adopt English pseudonyms for the screen (Sergio Ciani became Alan Steel, for example).

In the formulaic plots common to many of the films, two women vied for the affection of the hero: the good love interest, a damsel in distress needing rescue, and an evil queen or other ruler who served as a femme fatale. Most films also contain a standard scene involving belly dancing or some similar ballet, meant to depict an orgy and underline the pagan decadence of the villains. The contrived plots, poorly overdubbed dialogue, novice acting skills of the bodybuilder leads, and primitive special effects that were often inadequate to depict the legendary creatures on screen all conspire to give these films a certain camp appeal now.

To be sure, however, many of the films enjoyed widespread popularity among very general audiences, and had production values that were typical for popular films of the day. Several have been subjects of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment. Although many of the bigger budget pepla were released theatrically in the USA, fourteen of them were released directly to American television in a syndicated TV package called The Sons of Hercules, the films receiving newly-designed prologue narrations that desperately attempted to link whoever the hero of the film was to the Hercules mythos; these films ran on Saturday afternoons in the 1960s.

History

Hercules series (1957–1965)

A series of 19 Italian Hercules movies were made in the late 50's/ early 60's. The actors who played Hercules in these films were Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott, Adriano Bellini (billed as "Kirk Morris"), Mickey Hargitay, Mark Forest, Alan Steel, Dan Vadis, Brad Harris, Reg Park, Peter Lupus (billed as "Rock Stevens") and Michael Lane. The films are listed below by their American release titles, and the titles in parentheses are the original Italian titles with English translation. The date shown for each film is the actual date that the film was produced in Italy, not the date it was distributed in the USA and other foreign countries. The information in the filmographies on this page were taken from impeccable Italian film industry reference sources which are much more accurate than the information found on imdb.com and other such websites. (Filmography info on this page supplied by Frank Verzyl)


The Three Stooges made an American comedy in 1962 called The Three Stooges Meet Hercules with Canadian muscleman Samson Burke playing Hercules.

Note* - A number of English-dubbed Italian films that featured the Hercules name in their title were never intended to be Hercules movies by their Italian creators.

None of these films in their original Italian versions involved Hercules in any way. Likewise, most of the Sons of Hercules movies shown on American TV in the 1960s were not about Hercules in their original Italian incarnations.

Maciste series (1960–1965)

Main article: Maciste

There were a total of 25 Maciste films from the 1960s sword-and-sandal revival (not taking into account the two dozen silent Maciste films made in Italy pre-1930). The first title listed for each film is the film's original Italian title along with its English translation, while the U.S. release title follows in parentheses. (Note how many times Maciste's name in the Italian title is altered to an entirely different name in the American title):

Sidenote - In 1973, the bizarre Spanish cult film director Jesus Franco knocked off two low-budget Maciste films which were an odd mix of fantasy, adventure, and eroticism. The films were called The Erotic Exploits of Maciste in Atlantis and Maciste vs. The Amazon Queen (both starring Val Davis as Maciste). The films had almost identical casts, and appear to have been shot and edited simultaneously. These two (apparently lost) films were not connected in any way with the 1960s Italian Maciste series.

Ursus series (1961–1964)

Main article: Ursus (film character)

Ursus was a super-human Roman era character who was used as the hero in a series of Italian adventure films made in the 1960s. Ursus was referred to as a "Son of Hercules" in several of the films when they were dubbed in English (in an attempt to cash in on the then-popular Italian Hercules film series), although in the original Italian films, Ursus had no connection to Hercules whatsoever. In the English-dubbed version of one film (Hercules, Prisoner of Evil), Ursus was actually referred to throughout the entire film as "Hercules".

There were a total of 9 Italian films that featured Ursus as the main character, listed below as follows: Italian title/ English translation (USA title);

Samson series (1961–1964)

The Samson character was featured in a series of 5 sword-and-sandal adventure films made in Italy in the 1960s, as follows: (The Italian title & its translation is followed by the U.S. release title in parentheses)

The name Samson was later inserted into the titles of 6 other Italian sword-and-sandal movies when they were dubbed in English for distribution in the USA, although these films actually featured the adventures of the famed Italian folk hero Maciste. Samson Against the Sheik (1962), Son of Samson (1960), Samson and the Slave Queen (1963), Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World (1961), Samson Vs. The Giant King (1964), and Samson in King Solomon's Mines (1964) were all retitled Maciste movies, because the American distributors didn't feel the name Maciste was marketable to U.S. filmgoers.

Samson and the Treasure of the Incas (a.k.a. Hercules and the Treasure of the Incas) (1965) is listed in some reference books as a peplum, but the film was apparently set in South America during the time period of the Wild West, and the film doesn't appear to be a peplum.

Goliath series (1960–1964)

The Italians used Goliath as an action superhero in a series of Biblical adventure films in the early 1960s. He was possessed of amazing strength, and the films were similar in theme to their Hercules and Maciste movies. After the classic Hercules (1958) became a blockbuster sensation in the film industry, a 1959 Steve Reeves film Terrore dei Barbari(Terror of the Barbarians) was retitled Goliath and the Barbarians in the USA, (after Joseph E. Levine claimed the sole right to the name of Hercules); the film was so successful at the box office, it inspired Italian filmmakers to do a series of 4 more films featuring a beefcake hero named Goliath, although the films were not really related to each other. (The 1960 Italian film David and Goliath starring Orson Welles was not one of these, since that movie was a straightforward adaptation of the Biblical story).

The titles in the Italian Goliath series were as follows:

The name Goliath was later inserted into the film titles of 3 other Italian muscleman movies that were retitled for distribution in the USA in an attempt to cash in on the Goliath craze, but these films were not originally made as Goliath movies in Italy. Both Goliath and the Vampires (1961) and Goliath and the Sins of Babylon (1963) actually featured the famed superhero Maciste in the original Italian versions, but American distributors didn't feel the name Maciste had any meaning to American audiences. Goliath and the Dragon (1960) was originally an Italian Hercules movie called The Revenge of Hercules, and it is a mystery to this day why U.S. distributors didn't market the film under that title, since the Hercules films always tended to do much better at the box office than Goliath movies.

The Sons of Hercules (TV syndication package)

Main article: The Sons of Hercules

The Sons of Hercules was a syndicated repackaging of several pepla for American television, originally released in the 1960s. It contained 14 randomly-chosen Italian sword-and-sandal films, unifying them with memorable title and end title theme songs and a standard voice-over intro relating the main hero in each film to Hercules any way they could. The films are not listed in chronological order, since they were not really related to each other in any way. The first title listed below for each film was its American broadcast television title, followed by the English translation of the original Italian theatrical title in parentheses:

Gladiator movies, 1948-1965

There were a number of Italian pepla that heavily emphasized the gladiatorial arena in their plots, with it becoming almost a peplum sub-genre in itself; One group of supermen known as "The Ten Gladiators" appeared in a trilogy, all three films starring Dan Vadis in the lead role. Many gladiator films followed the immensely successful Spartacus (film) and starred actors such as Richard Harrison who were not quite muscular enough to be convincing as a Hercules, Samson or Goliath.

Steve Reeves pepla (in chronological order of production)

Steve Reeves appeared in 14 pepla made in Italy from 1957 to 1964, and most of his films are highly regarded examples of the sword and sandal genre. The films are listed by their American release titles, followed by the translation of the original Italian title in parentheses:

Other classic sword-and-sandal films (1960s)

There were many 1960's Italian sword-and-sandal films that did not feature a major superhero (such as Hercules, Maciste or Samson), and as such fall into a sort of miscellaneous category. (They do however feature well-known characters such as Ali Baba, Julius Caesar, Ulysses, Cleopatra, The Three Musketeers, Theseus, Perseus, Achilles, Robin Hood, Sandokan, El Cid, etc.) Ulysses (1954) is the film most peplum fans consider started the peplum trend, but it was "Hercules" (1957) that fueled the genre's instantaneous growth.

Here is a list of the best-known titles:

Later sword-and-sandal films from the 1980s

After the pepla gave way to the spaghetti western and Eurospy imitation James Bond films in 1965, the genre lay dormant for close to 20 years. Then in 1981, Ray Harryhausen's Clash of the Titans, telling the same story as Medusa Vs. the Son of Hercules/Perseus the Invincible, revived the concepts of pepla, but critical pans offset its modest box-office success and it was not imitated. A year later, the Robert E. Howard-based Conan the Barbarian, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, did spur a second renaissance of Italian pepla in the six years immediately following. Most notable among them were four Lou Ferrigno vehicles, more faithful to the genre than any other films from this period. The majority of these films were in fact Conan knock-offs, sword and sorcery stories set not in the ancient Greco-Roman era, but in a non-historical time of localized kingdoms, barbarian swordsmen and wizards. These pictures were generally of low quality due to painfully limited budgets, and in some instances the filmmakers tried to compensate for their shortcomings with the addition of some graphic gore and nudity. Many of these 1980's entries were helmed by noted Italian horror film directors. Here is a list of the 1980s pepla:

The modern era

The mainstream success of the 2000 film Gladiator is responsible for an increased interest in Roman and classical history in the United States. According to The New York Times, this has been called the "Gladiator Effect" in the publishing industry.

"It's called the 'Gladiator' effect by writers and publishers. The snob in us likes to believe that it is always books that spin off movies. Yet in this case, it's the movies -- most recently Gladiator two years ago -- ; that have created the interest in the ancients. And not for more Roman screen colossals, but for writing that is serious or fun or both."


A different kind of modern revival was the Australian release of Hercules Returns in 1993, which featured Australian actors overvoicing Ercole sfida Sansone. This cinematic release formalised a theatrical act headed by Des Mangan and others entitled Doubletake which featured live actors supplying a new soundtrack for Ercole sfida Sansone, which the classical world with an unexpcted Australian inflection in both accent and lifestyle. This presentation had been toured for some years across Australia during the 1980s and 1990s and was extremely successful.


Academic bibliography

Additional references