Tag: classic

New SLAVE QUEEN OF BABYLON German Blu-ray…

A German release of SLAVE QUEEN OF BABYLON is now available. You can choose your store of choice but they have it at Amazon.de

I like this film and I already have a HD copy of it but I wonder how good the new release is. The movie was already available on Blu-ray but the quality was disappointing. Hopefully this new release the transfer is better. Unfortunately, no English track including. Only Italian and German.

There are two different covers to choose from.

The cover above is an amalgamation of poster art taken from SAPPHO THE VENUS OF LESBOS (the fighting men with Kerwin Mathews) and JOURNEY BENEATH THE DESERT aka ANTINEA – L’AMANTE DELLA CITTA.

PEPLUM star publishes new book…

Bella Cortez was one of the PEPLUM genre’s most beautiful actresses. She made a handful of movies and quietly disappeared from the world of cinema. Years ago, I found her Facebook profile and befriended her, one of her first Facebook friends. Anyway, we kept communicating back and forth for some time. She told me she was woking on a book (above) in which she co-autored with someone else. She wanted access to beautiful prints of herself for the book and saw the many good quality versions I had of her films. Eventually, she ‘ghosted’ me and she never posted anything at my FB account. But I remembered that she was going to publish a book and, lo and behold, it is available at Amazon in Italy. She used a photo from VULCAN – SON OF JUPITER as Aetna. Since the book is in Italian, it’s difficult for me to get it all. If someone has additional info on this, can you leave a comment. Thanks!

Bella in GIANT OF METROPOLIS

THE SON OF SPARTACUS Blu-ray colour issues…

The new German Blu-ray of THE SON OF SPARTACUS is excellent. The image is clear and the English audio is actually available which is often not the case with German releases. My only issue, and it might be seen as a small one, are the colours. This print seems to have various colour tones and hues.

The German Blu-ray edition (above) vs the Warner Archive edition (below). The Warner one is terrible: too dark and overly red but the sky and ocean seem more realistic than the overly yellowish one of the German Blu-ray. The bag on the lower right is also more true to nature in the Warner release than the German one. Though there’s more general details in the German release, the Warner one seems to have more definition (the ground and bag…) Which is the correct one?

This image above is sharp, much sharper than the Warner archive release but it’s overly greyish blue.

This cropped screenshot from the new Blu-ray has beautiful colours here. Not the yellowish or too blue. Skin tones look great.

The German Blu-ray is excellent but there are some discrepancies in regards to the colour tone in many scenes.

Ed Fury, R.I.P.

Ed Fury, one of the original PEPLUM stars of the 1960s, died on February 24. He was a young 94 years old. Ed starred as Ursus in 3 movies, THE MIGHTY URSUS (above and below), URSUS IN THE VALLEY OF LIONS and URSUS IN THE LAND OF FIRE. He also starred in a few other PEPLUM productions. For a full list of his movies, visit the main PEPLUM TV blog.

PEPLUM TV

HANNIBAL Blu-ray…

German Blu-ray edition of HANNIBAL (1959) starring Victor Mature and Rita Gam, will be available in 2023.

Here’s the brief info on it:

Theatrical version (German & US version identical), uncut , 2 discs, BD (2x), contains bonus disc, extras in HD (partly), media book

It’s being sold as a Bud Spencer – Terence Hill movie. Hill’s role is extensive but Spencer’s role is almost a cameo.

HERCULES AGAINST THE BARBARIANS German DVD…

I wasn’t aware that HERCULES AGAINST THE BARBARIANS had a German DVD. It was released in January 2020. I guess the pandemic made everyone overlook everything. Anyway, the DVD has a German and English audio which is a yeah!!! But looking at the specs (below), and the aspect ratio is standard 4:3. So it’s a definite no for me. This is one of those PEPLUM titles with needs to be seen in widescreen.