Category: hollywood

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.

We’re December 10 and…

the SODOM AND GOMORRAH German Blu-ray is still not available even though it says at Amazon.de that it’ll be available on December 9, 2021. This release has already been delayed a couple of times, and as I anticipated, it’s still not available.

Addendum: someone who lives in Germany was able to get it for me….from Amazon. I guess Amazon.de don’t people from outside of Germany to buy it. Anyway, I will give a thorough review of it once I get it.

SODOM AND GOMORRAH Japanese Blu-ray…

SODOM AND GOMORRAH (1962) starring Stewart Granger, Pier Angeli and a host of European actors is available on Blu-ray in Japan!

I purchased it and it’s already on its way.

The runtime is only 117 minutes and not the 150 + plus one. Regardless, I’m curious to see the image quality.

Front and back covers. Not the best quality. Hopefully, the film itself will be excellent. I’ll keep you posted on this.

SWORD OF THE CONQUEROR German Blu-ray…

I finally got the German Blu-ray of SWORD OF THE CONQUEROR (1961) starring Jack Palance, Guy Madison, Eleonora Rossi Drago, and Edy Vessel. The Blu-ray is excellent. The image is clear and it’s pretty much without any issues, including the ‘too dark’ image problem often seen with Blu-ray transfers of old movies. This one is near perfect. The movie is still under copyright ownership in the US and Canada by United Artists (MGM) so the print was well preserved by Italian film studio Titanus, and the transfer professionally done. Audio in German, Italian and English. The Blu-ray itself is bare bones with the usual trailer of the movie, in English and Italian, and a slideshow of images of the movie, such as posters and lobby cards. Well worth buying.

Above: Eleonora Rossi Drago and Jack Palance. I didn’t make any adjustments to the images. Below, Guy Madison, Jack Palance and Eleonora.

More of these German releases, please!!!

Would you pay $472 for…

…a vintage BEN-HUR board game?

I’ve been looking for this rare board game based on the blockbuster BEN-HUR (1959) epic on eBay and someone finally posted one for sale…at $472 US (or 400 Euros). It’s in Spanish from Spain. It’s in pretty good condition but as much of a PEPLUM fan I am, I wouldn’t pay that much for one.

Update on that ANTONY & CLEOPATRA VHS tape…

This is a follow-up to a previous article…

I successfully transferred the *uncut* copy of ANTONY & CLEOPATRA (1972), starring and directed by Charlton Heston, from VHS to DVD+R to digital. It wasn’t a difficult process since I had an old DVD / VCR recorder that still works. It was just a question of setting it up correctly, including buying a small monitor to connect to DVD recorder in order to view the making of the DVD+R. So, new monitor and new blank DVD+Rs and that was it. I watched the movie has it was being recorded. The uncut version is the only version worth watching. I have different versions of this and it’s amazing how the uncut version, though a bit long at time, flows so much more smoothly than the cut versions out there.

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS 1944 re-release

Cecil B. DeMille’s THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (1932) was a rare PEPLUM movie of the 1930s. It was a success and 11 years later, the movie was re-released for the second time (it was also re-issued in 1938). New footage was added to the 1944, which can be seen in the trailer posted below. For decades, this version was the only version available. The original pre-code 1932 cut, with all the naughty stuff, was too racy once the Hayes code was set in place. All the cuts scenes were eventually restored in the 1990s and the 1944 version disappeared even if for many people it was, with the WW 2 angle, the one they saw on television.

The question is: will this 1944 version ever be available again?