Category: peplum

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.

Looking for…

Update: Tim has sent me a link to the original movie hosted at Britannica’s website.

‘Examine the ways in which mythology functioned for the ancient Greek population’

—–

…Encyclopedia Brittanica’s school film series about Greek Myths.

Someone uploaded a clip from one of these films on Greek myth to Youtube, Theseus and the Minotaur, and though the image is super murky it looks quite interesting and promising. The uploaded wrote that the films are in color. If anyone has any info or at least great copies of these Greek myth movies please contact me.

Here’s the video:

Here are two shots from it:

Still waiting…

November 2019 KINO LORBER announced the 4K restoration of GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES (1961), renamed here as SAMSON AGAINST THE VAMPIRES. As the screenshot shows, the movie was supposed to be released in 2020, or early 2020. As of October 8, 2020, there’s still no news about it.

People posted messages supporting this news and added how much they would love to see more PEPLUM movies get the same treatment and yet nothing is done about it. There’s a HUGE market for these movies around the world, including North America, and no one is capitalizing on it. Like I’ve said so many times, the PEPLUM genre gets no respect.

New batch of HD prints!

There’s a current batch of PEPLUM titles now available in HD. These titles are not available on Blu-ray but were broadcast in HD or are available for streaming. This bodes well for the genre. Titles long left in obscurity now look absolutely amazing! Looking forward to more titles in the future.

Above and below: CLEOPATRA’S DAUGHTER (1960) starring Debra Paget and Corrado Pani. The most stunning HD print of a PEPLUM title, even surpassing the equally stunning German Blu-ray of THIEF OF BAGHDAD (1961) starring Steve Reeves. I’m just amazed by the clarity of the image. This movie has not been released on BR but is available as a streaming title in Italy.

Above and below (2): Another beautiful print of a favourite movie of mine, ULYSSES AGAINST HERCULES (1962) starring Georges Marchal. Not as stunning as CLEOPATRA’S DAUGHTER or THIEF OF BAGHDAD it’s still great to see.

ULYSSES AGAINST HERCULES was filmed on the Canary Islands. As the image above shows, the image quality is not as perfect as CLEOPATRA’S DAUGHTER.

Above and below: SULEIMAN THE CONQUEROR (1961), starring Giorgia Moll and Alberto Farnese (above) is hard to get movie and previous prints were always disappointing. Not anymore. Though not super pristine as other prints (as the below screengrab shows), is a definite improvement over other releases. Worthy of a Fan Dub.

And last but not least. A recent showing of SON OF SAMSON (1960) on the Italian network, RAI. The image is stunning. Unfortunately, the aspect ratio is not full 1920×1280 HD. It, and Mark, still look great though.