THE GIANT OF MARATHON German Blu-ray arrived…

I got the German Blu-ray of THE GIANT OF MARATHON (1959) starring Steve Reeves, Mylene Demongeot and Albeto Lupo last week. It’s a beautiful print…with some issues.

The first issue I noticed with the English audio is that it was out of sync in some spots. I noticed this during a quick scan of the HD print. I examined the same scene with the US public domain print and the editing is slightly different so that could explain the out of sync English audio on the German / European print.

The other issue is the movie is cropped. Like HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959) HD print, which is zoomed in or cropped, this copy suffers from the same fate. The Spanish streaming print is more correct. The print is still gorgeous but why can’t we get perfect prints for PEPLUM movies?

Anyway, great film!

Steve Reeves

Mylène Demongeot

Alberto Lupo and Steve Reeves

BY THE GODS! magazine…new sale!

I know the blog has basically been all about the magazine…well, the blog was created for the magazine. The last information is sales in January 2026 were the second best selling month since the month the first issue was published. Truly amazing. Thanks to everyone who supported the magazine by buying it.

The magazine is currently on sale! It’s time to buy the latest issue or older ones.

https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/3205057

Are there still PEPLUM movies left to be discovered?

I recently ‘discovered’ three old movies which can fall under the PEPLUM category. Now it remains to be seen if others agree but the movies follow the same style and same storylines as classic PEPLUM movies.

I believe we know the majority of PEPLUM movies but there are some which are grandfathered from the usual bunch. They had mo direct connection with a studio or actors but they are PEPLUM. This is why some still have yet to be discovered. It’s difficult because unless you saw them when they were released back in the day and few of these people are alive. A recent example is I SETTE NANI ALLA RISCOSSA (1951). It’s basically Snow White and the seven dwarfs but PEPLUM style. It stars Rossana Podesta, Georges Marchal and Salvatore Furnani, three familiar stars of the PEPLUM genre. I had heard of it but never gave it a second thought until I came across a poster and it screamed PEPLUM (not the one below but another one…even if this one screams PEPLUM as well…).

I feel like a traveller who has seen every corner of the world and every map of the world and there’s pretty much nothing left to see. But there’s always something unseen, hidden somewhere.

BY THE GODS! magazine news

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything about BY THE GODS! magazine. I have abandoned it or anything. I’ve decided to publish one issue this year so next year everything will fall into place. It was decided that the magazine would be published twice in a year but this year, there will only be one issue.

The upcoming issue, which will cover disasters in PEPLUM movies, will be FALL/WINTER 2025. This means next year, SPRING/SUMMER should be published in March or April 2026. Then the FALL/WINTER issue will comes out around the end of August or September or October 2026. As it was I published issue 3 late last year (Dec 18 to be precise), which covered the beginning of this year. It would have been too soon to publish a new issue in March or April. I would have given me just one or two months to make it. I had to wait until all the fundamentals were in place so everything would eventually work out smoothly.

So, stay tuned. It’s coming soon!

 

THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD (1961) starring Steve Reeves on Blu in English…

John Black left a comment about the new ‘Tales of Adventure’ boxset from Australia which will include THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1924) starring Douglas Fairbanks, THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940) starring Sabu and THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD (1961) starring Steve Reeves. The price at the website says $89 Australian.

This is great news in that it will be the first Blu-ray release of the Reeves THIEF OF BAGHDAD in English. Before, it was only available from Germany (which included the English audio).

Link

Commentary on THIEF is by Adrian Smith. I’m not familiar with him.