Category: peplum

Has anyone seen…JACOB AND ESAU (1963)?

While some PEPLUM titles are finally being released in HD or on Blu-ray, other movies are still hard to find or just impossible to find. One of these  ‘lost’ PEPLUM moves is JACOB AND ESAU (1963) starring Ken Clark and Wandisa Guida, just to name a few actors. This alone makes it a must see for PEPLUM fans like me. So what happened to the movie?

The only thing we have to go by are the movie posters and fotobustas (below).

As expected for such a rare movie, IMDb has no reviews listed. The book HEROES NEVER DIE has a review of the movie but quite frankly it’s dubious. The author claimed to someone I know that he saw the movie on Youtube. This seems unlikely since someone else would have seen it. So, I’m asking people out there: have you seen JACOB AND ESAU?

 

Two Blu-rays under the radar…

I usually post about Blu-rays of Non-Hollywood movies. Aside from certain titles, nearly all PEPLUM movies made in Hollywood have been released on Blu-ray or HD. I’m talking about the big Hollywood productions. In fact, they’re now releasing some of these titles in 4K.

Two new titles have been released and they’re sorta flew under the radar. THE GOLDEN BLADE (1953) and SWORD OF THE VALIANT (1984). The latter is not really a Hollywood movie since it was made by Cannon Group but it’s now own by MGM. Cannon Group were always outside of Hollywood though some of there titles were sometimes released through a Hollywood studio.

These Blu-ray releases are excellent.

I always thought SWORD OF THE VALIANT looked cheap back in the good old days of VHS but with this BR release, the movie looks quite good. Much better than it ever did. It still sorta looks on the cheap side but the pristine widescreen image gives the movie a cool classy look. It’s a shame about that wig Miles O’keeffe had to wear throughout the movie.

THE GOLDEN BLADE is one of those small Arabian adventure movies, only 81 minutes long, which are often overlooked by fans of the genre or in general. This one is one of the best of the bunch. Fun, colourful, well acted certainly by Piper Laurie. The Blu-ray is beautiful. It’s not a widescreen production and the movie was clearly made in a Hollywood studio lot but I have to say that the BR really makes this movie shine. Some of the lighting, usually seen as flat in previous releases, now looks quite beautiful and elaborate (here’s a comparison of the movie). A fun little movie with Rock Hudson as the action hero. I’ll have full reviews of these titles at PEPLUMTV.com in the near future.

The score that’s making videos disappear from Youtube…

The PEPLUM TV channel has had several videos pulled by Youtube not because the movie or clips are copyrighted but because the score of a certain movie is. The score for SWORD OF THE CONQUEROR (1961) by Carlo Rustichelli is currently being used to invalidate uploads, even uploads that have been there for years. As it’s often the case with PEPLUM movies, the score for this movie starring Jack Palance was re-used countless of times in other movies. By claiming the score is protected, the PEPLUM TV channel has lost about a dozen uploads, just from that one score. The claimant, a giant multination music corporation, is going after other scores in order to remove uploads which have on Youtube without issues for years. It’s a terrible tactic but for now it’s working. I don’t mind if a music score is claimed and revenues go its artist but to block or ban an upload just because of that is ineffective. These films are popular and keeping them in obscurity does more of a disservice to these movies than anything else.

Year in review…

BY THE GODS! shorts

There’s so much to say about 2020…but I’ll spare you all of the bad stuff.

This blog was created in preparation for a new project, mainly a magazine, or zine, named BY THE GODS!. But the pandemic happened and everything was put on hold until further notice. Hopefully 2021 will be better than 2020 in regards to everything, including this much delayed project.

There were other disappointments, including the long announced but still missing Blu-ray of SAMSON AGAINT THE VAMPIRES. There’s no need for me to go over it again now since I wrote a couple of articles on this m.i.a. BR.

Link

The best news for the PEPLUM genre were HD TV broadcast/streaming service of PEPLUM movies from mainly Italy, and some from France. A dozen or so titles have suddenly popped up and most of them are beautiful, certainly CONQUEROR OF CORINTH (1961; aka The Centurion) with Gianna in HD.

But recent announcements of new Blu-ray releases have sorta been disappointing as well, with the delayed release of the German BR of DUEL OF THE TITANS and the inclusion of MST3K in the upcoming US Blu-ray of HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN. I mean, why?

Also, Warner Archives have announced new titles for January, and not one single PEPLUM movie listed, or even action movie.

Oh well…good riddance to 2020.

Update on upcoming Blu-rays from Germany…

Update: when I’m logged in into Amazon.de, the Blu-ray says it’s ‘out of stock’ but when I view the listing without being logged in to Amazon.de, it says it’s available.

The new Blu-ray for DUEL OF THE TITANS (1961) is now out of stock. It’s been out of stock since I posted about it a month ago. I know this blog is popular but wow…haha!

Also, the NEFERTITI – QUEEN OF THE NILE (1961) Blu-ray from Germany is extremely expensive. They now charge an extra 20 Euros for packaging and an extra 17.00 Euros for import fees. So the Blu-ray now costs 3 times as much. I won’t be buying it. Why should someone pay 20 Euros for packaging for an item sold through Amazon? And a Blu-ray is tiny. It’s a rip-off.

NEFERTITI – QUEEN OF THE NILE Blu-ray…

More good news. NEFERTITI – QUEEN OF THE NILE (1961) starring Jeanne Crain, Edmund Purdom and Vincent Price, will have an official Blu-ray release in Germany. The Amazon link doesn’t have any screengrabs but if a recent print I acquired recently will tell well the image quality will be stunning.

Amazon Germany

Edmund Purdom and Jeanne Crain. A screengrab of a HD copy I got recently. I dunno the source of it (from this upcoming disc or TV broadcast…?) but needless to say it’s beautiful.