Talk:Sword and sandal

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Hi, I'm the guy who wrote the peplum filmography on this peplum page, but recently I haven't been able to edit or improve my list. Why aren't my edits going through? I'm just trying to fix up the grammar and some of the dates, and make it more presentable. Please see the edit I submitted today & let me know why it isn't going through? Thanks frank@licomics.com

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I've heard of Ben-Hur, the 1960s Cleopatra, Spartacus, etc, being called "sword and sandal", but this writeup seems to exclude those? Stan 03:31 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I've never really seen the phrase used of anything but a low-budget Italian picture. They obviously relate, at least as homage. You also could get some spill-over from loosely Biblical stuff from the same period; you mention Ben-Hur; a film like The Silver Chalice might conceivably also count. I guess it strikes me as a bit of a stretch to define the genre in such a way that includes The Ten Commandments as well as Hercules Versus the Moon Men. -- IHCOYC 04:23 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I'd never thought about how an official definition might read. I guess if I had to make up something, I would say "characters from ancient times heroically acting according to 20th century mores". I've never seen or even heard of (that I remember) any of the low-budget Italian flicks, but I have heard "sword-and-sandal" used by critics, as a generic pejorative for any pre-medieval flick. Stan 06:02 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Peplum?

I was looking for information about peplums - "a flared ruffle attached to the waist of a jacket, bodice, etc". So why the hell was I redirected here? 81.19.57.146

Peplum is probably taken from the Latin meaning "robe of state." In film costuming, it refers to those over-the-shoulder tunics worn by Hercules, et. al. It's a kind of stereotype now, so much so that mainstream films like "300" have guys wearing Peplum-type costumes. In actuality, most Greeks wore the Khlamis (mantle), a simple garment suited for their hot, dry climate. Problem is, the Khlamis really doesn't leave much to the imagination -- it's a shortish mantle worn without underwear. The Ancient Greeks had no problems with male nudity, but modern American audiences won't stand for it. Oydman 03:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mexican sword and sandal films?

In the cinema museum in Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle, there are posters and stills from Mexican-made silent films that patterned themselves after the Italian films of that same era but which used Aztec settings as the Italians had used Greek and Roman settings. Any information about this?

[edit] Intro Quote

Shouldn't the line below it read "Captain Oveur (played by Peter Graves) ..." Lars T. 22:53, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Period Films vs. Peplum

I'm not really clear on the concept of peplum, but to me Sword and Sandal refers to the escalating series of high budget pictures starting around Quo Vadis ending around the The Fall of the Roman Empire that the studios used to showcase new technology and spend a lot of money. I'm going to add a paragraph to that effect, if someone more qualified can change this assessment feel free, but these pictures must fall under some heading.


The difference is that films like Quo Vadis, Sparticus, Fall of the Roman Empire, Cleopatra, etc. were PERIOD films produced by big studios with name actors and real budgets. Peplum refers to cheap genre films, often with a burly bodybuilder as the lead. The big Hollywood Period Pictures of the 50s and 60s were more often than not based on popular historical novels (or the Bible), while Peplums ripped off various bits of classical mythology and whatever else they could think of to cobble together a plot.
You can really spot the cheapness of the typical Peplum film. I've seen several Italian-made films of this type, and I believe they all rented their costumes from the same costume place. Many helmets look the same from film to film, for example. They also dub the dialog in ways that range from comical to merely poor-quality. Many studios didn't bother to record background sound, so there's music, dialog, and maybe a Foley effect or two during swordfights. Peplum directors were also known to rip off other Peplum films if somebody came up with a cool shot. They say a mob rushing the gates of Troy was later (flipped horizontally?) used as people fleeing from Pompeii. Whatever saved a few lire.

Oydman 03:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography

Although most examples of peplum were produced in Italy, Retro Studs (2002), David Chapman's collection of film posters and capsule bios of the genre shows that the genre wasn't completely centred there. If anyone wants to update their knowledge of this genre, I've added his book to a bibliography section. Hope it helps. You might also want to have a look at Hillman and Gunsberg's papers on the issue if the relevant books are in any adjacent university or public libraries.

User: Calibanu 13:14, 21 April 2006

[edit] List of every S&S film?

The recent additions by anon user are impressive. But I wonder if it is appropriate? This is an encyclopedia article not a database. We should list the most important films/directors/actors and say why they are the most important. A comprehensive list would be best linked to off-site, or in a book, or perhaps in a "list of" article. The data added by anon needs a lot of formating work and I wonder who is going to do that? meanwhile the article looks poor and needs a lot of cleanup work. Stbalbach 04:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup Tag

Article needs formatting help. Capitalizations, list formatting, wikilinks, shorter section titles. -- Stbalbach 11:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It also needs massive reorganization. How much about these Italian flicks do we need to know? They should probably have their own article. --Bobak 23:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The article has made good progress, but I re-added the cleanup tag a few things remain. The primary concern is the CAPITALIZED WORDS. Words should not be in all capitals, movie titles would be in italic. The article structure is kind of like a midget sitting on top of a tall tree. The WP:Lead section contains the entire article, instead of a summary, while the remaining body of the article is a List of Sword and sandal movies. This should be resolved somehow, either by making a real lead section summary and move the current lead section into the body of the article - and/or by creating "list of.." sub-section in this article or spinning it off to a separate "list of.." article. Thoughts? -- Stbalbach 14:32, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

This article has some POV and Encyclopedic Tone issues that need clean-up as well: contrived plots, absurd plots, unintended humour, etc. If you can cite some reliable sources that back up these assertions, please do so. Otherwise, it's just one person's opinion -- save that for your 'blog. It's okay to point out these films have low-budgets, were ridiculed on MST3K, or were released direct to television ... but calling these films contrived, absurd, or even unintentionally humourous violates POV (and certainly sounds out-of-place in an encyclopedia). 66.17.118.195 20:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I would tend to disagree, low-grade B and C level movies can be spoken of in factual common knowledge terms on why they are bad. Encyclopedia articles on works of art usually have some kind of comment about the artistic quality which is common knowledge. I have a movie encyclopedia that does the same thing, it is helpful for the reader to be able to judge what quality the movie is and point out any common knowledge flaws. Of course linking to reviews for each would be even better. -- Stbalbach 13:56, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I would agree that some of the comments are just too opinionated. 'woefully inadequate', 'beefcake factor', 'wooden acting' do not belong in an encyclopedia in my opinion. See Weasel Words 82.110.62.178 17:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Modern S&S

Regarding the section below, this seems like Original Research. Anyone can say any film they want is a "S&S" film. Lord of the Rings? No way. It's really not up to us to decide, it needs to be sourced.


In my opinion, the list looks good save for LotR, the Merlin films, and Pathfinder.

After the revival of historic epics in 2000 by the Ridley Scott film, Gladiator, sword-and-sandal films became a big hit, and many followed in the wake of its success. Some of these include:


For the record: Peplum was CHEAP. These films were done for the merest fraction of what the big Hollywood Period Epics' budgets. Sets were generally simple: a couple of columns, a throne, and some guards made a throne room set. Much of the action took place out in the woods or a grassy field. A battle scene might have a couple of dozen stuntmen and last five minutes. LOTR or Gladiator are FAR beyond the scope of Sword and Sandal. If a true Peplum film were possible today, it would be filmed in Romania or a former Soviet Republic and star someone like Dennis Wolf, 2005 World Amateur Bodybuilding Champion. Unfortunately, these type of low-budget films generally go straight to DVD. Give me 2-3 million and I'd make a film worthy of the Peplum name with him! http://www.dennis-wolf.de/gallery_cover.html

[edit] Retitled "Goliath"

Since the Steve Reeves vehicle we know as Goliath and the Barbarians was so titled in the US because its distributors wanted to evoke his Hercules films, but Joseph Levine claimed to own that hero's name (BTW, this is the first I've heard that), wouldn't that also be the solution to the supposed mystery as to why The Revenge of Hercules was released here as Goliath and the Dragon? And shouldn't the article reflect this, or at least not imply there's no suspicion of it? Ted Watson (talk) 21:49, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Samson Burke

The text referred to "...Italian muscleman Samson Burke...." but both the IMDb and the booklet by Stephen Flacassier listed in the bibliography say he is Canadian, hence my revision. However, I have seen two films with "him," The Three Stooges Meet Hercules and his Ursus entry, and they do not seem to be the same man. Note that Ursus is dated 1961, and Stooges a year later. But in the earlier film he sports a great deal more beef, looking like an over-steroided fugitive from the bodybuilding contests of the post-Arnold Schwarzenegger/Lou Ferrigno era, than the Steve Reeves look-alike in Stooges. Furthermore, the latter looks a great deal more than one year older. How and why would--or could--he lose so much muscle in such a short amount of time? As "Ursus" is clean-shaven while "Hercules" is bearded, I can make no truly definite statement about the facial features, but they do seem dissimilar. I strongly suspect that "Samson Burke" is something along the lines of a house name, used by at least two different men, but I am not putting any such statement in the article.

BTW, there is one film not listed here (unless it's just a case of this one alternate title for it not being given), but which should be in either the "Gladiator" or "Other" list, and has quite a controversy attached to it. The only known English-language title is My Son, the Hero. For years, it was reported to have been dubbed with "comical" Yiddish accents, but in the early 1990s it turned up on TNT cable, with a typical dialog track. Subsequent commentaries (e.g., the Flacassier work) have said it never had such voices, but what other explanation is there for that title? I submit that there were objections when it opened, it was pulled, and eventually surfaced with the European English audio (I read somewhere a long time ago that the continent's cheap action/adventure flicks, whether these pepla, spaghetti/sauerkraut Westerns, crime pictures [e.g. Germany's Doctor Mabuse series], spy spoofs, or horror movies, had English-language tracks made over there, hence Mario Bava's Black Sunday has two, the official one and an alternate made by the US distributor). Does anybody have any information about this film to put in the article, as I no longer have my copy of the Flacassier booklet?

One other film suggestion: Roger Corman's Atlas (1961), starring Michael Forest, not to be confused with pepla star Mark Forest. It's just as deserving of mention as the Stooges film, if not more so, since it's serious. Ted Watson (talk) 22:20, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Explanation to the reports of comical dubbing of 'My Son The Hero": The US coming attraction and lazy so called film reviews are the culprits. It was for the US coming attraction for the film that new, so called 'funny' voices were recorded. Often labeled as 'Yiddish' or 'Jewish'. The film was very hard to find for many years, but the coming attraction was out there in fan compilations. So instead of tracking down the film to form a real opinion, they just based their entries on the coming attraction. Another example is how many reviews stated the film featured statues that come to life, a scene in the coming attraction. But you have to watch the film to know that the characters are hiding inside the hollow statues and burst out. A bit different from them 'coming to life'. The bad info was passed from one author to another just copying what others had written without checking it's validity. After a while, enough people had repeated it that the 'funny voice' soundtrack was believed to be fact, when it never existed for the real film. Not a case of outcry and objections that removed an offensive voice track, just lazy writers who found it easier to speard ignoracne that doing their job and getting it right. Stephen Flacassier 6/6/2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.162.62.142 (talk) 01:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New section?--English language productions

After mentioning Roger Corman's Atlas (1961) in my inquiry about the possibility of at least two different men "acting" under the name Samson Burke, I have though about other films that seem to be of this genre but are USA or Brit productions, in English. Along with Corman's picture, The Three Stooges Meet Hercules and Hercules and the Princess of Troy (besides ex-Tarzan Gordon Scott as the hero, this unsold US TV series pilot featured such Hollywood figures as Diana Hyland and Paul Stevens) already mentioned in the article, there are:

I had another in mind when I started, but I'm darned if I can remember it now. Anyway, does the idea of such an additional section sound good? Ted Watson (talk) 21:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is Barbarian Queen relevant?

I see that Barbarian Queen has been deleted from the list of "1980s" films again. I strongly recommend that the editors involved in this admittedly small scale edit war discuss why each thinks the way he/she does about it. I will point out that the article for the film itself says it takes place in the Roman Empire, as does the IMDb, which is at least the beginning of a strong argument right there. However, I have never seen the picture myself (I think), and merely ask the editors to discuss and settle their disagreement here. Ted Watson (talk) 22:01, 23 March 2008 (UTC)