Category: peplum

KING DAVID Blu-ray…

I just want to mention that this blog wasn’t supposed to wrote only about Blu-rays but it’s basically what it has become once and if the magazine project take hold.

Okay, back to Blu-ray releases. Paramount will release KING DAVID (1985) on Blu-ray on April 26. Great news. Unfortunately, it’s KING DAVID. Lol!

Anyway, one has to support all PEPLUM movies. Production is good but the casting of Richard Gere…well, the less said the better. I already have a HD copy of this movie and the movie itself looks good. But I just can’t get past Gere as King David. It’s a shame because it had a good director/crew/cast. Needless to say, this didn’t inspire a Biblical revival in the 1980s. PEPLUM movies were more the Sword & Sorcery or Adventure/Fantasy kind.

AMAZON

The image is nice. The audio is excellent. But this is not from the soon-to-be-released BD. But it is in full HD.

Watching movies in HD is great but it also showcases the bits were the movie tried to cut corners. In one violent battle scene, you can clearly see that mannequins were used for dead soldiers on the field. Oops…

SON OF SAMSON pre-order…

SON OF SAMSON Blu-ray release by KINO LORBER is now available for pre-order at Amazon. This is great news.

SON OF SAMSON BD @ AMAZON

The BD is still available for pre-order in Canada but there’s still two months left so I’ll wait and see.

Below is the official artwork of the release. Looks great.

This Blu-ray release is a complete opposite of the KL attempted release of the ill-fated GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES.

Are you ready for 4K?

Are you ready for PEPLUM movies in 4K?

There are already titles, all of them from Hollywood, that are available in 4K, such as SPARTACUS (1960) and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956). See Youtube video linked above. The scene they used for the comparison (below) is not impressive. I see some different, mostly clarity, or less fuzzy, but of all the scenes they could have used from THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, they used that one? Mind boggling. Oh well…

 

As usual, Hollywood big titles are getting the 4K treatment first. There are few PEPLUM movies from Italy on Blu-ray so the prospect of seeing HERCULES (1958) in 4K are not in the immediate future.

SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD Blu-ray….

Kino Lorber has announced that they will be releasing a Blu-ray later this year of the neglected SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD (1960), directed by Riccardo Freda and starring Gordon Scott, Yoko Tani, Gabriele Antonini and more. This is excellent news. From the sporadic info going around the internet, it seems the Blu-ray release will have the original Italian cut and the shorter US cut. This is perfect. Every PEPLUM release in North America should include both the original Italian version and the often cut US release.

There’s already a beautiful copy of the movie shown on RAI in Italy (screenshot below). The thing is: will the cut scenes, almost all of them at the beginning, will be in English or in Italian with English subtitles. The US version starts approximately 10 minutes into the original Italian cut. No English dubbing has ever been heard of those 10+ missing minutes.

That FURY OF ACHILLES Blu-ray…

I finally got the new FURY OF ACHILLES (1962) Blu-ray disc from GOLDEN NINJA VIDEO. The movie stars Gordon Mitchell in his best role. This disc also includes PERSEUS THE INVINCIBLE (1963) starring Richard Harrison, and THE TROJAN HORSE (1961) starring Steve Reeves.

The movies are not new prints scanned in High Definition. They are up conversions of previous DVD releases. To give you an idea, the PERSEUS one has the SON OF HERCULES song during the opening credits. The original release didn’t have that.

Why was this BD made? I dunno but one can watch these three movies via BD and not from the web I guess. The disc is only $12 so it’s not expensive. If you don’t have these movies then the price might be okay but be sure that the image quality is not High Definition. Personally speaking, since I already have all these titles in my collection, I really didn’t need this disc.

Here are screenshots of the movies.

THE TROJAN HORSE is available on AMAZON PRIME in Canada. It’s the image on the top left. The copy from the BD is on the bottom right. The version at Amazon is not perfect but it is much better that the one on this disc.

Mark Forest RIP

PEPLUM actor Mark Forest died on January 7 at the age of 89. He made 12 movies, all entertaining and fun. I wrote a comprehensive overview of his career and his movies at the main PEPLUM TV blog. Make sure to check it out.

http://www.peplumtv.com/2022/01/mark-forest-rip.html

None of his films have made it on Blu-ray. Many of his movies have been broadcast in HD but never published to Blu-ray.