pepla

I award extra credit to any movie with a Hell sequence and this one's pretty good, populated as it is with vampires (that's Tom Poston's daughter above, doing the "Time Warp"... er, I mean "The Apple") and dog-faced muscle men and dancers galore in what seems to be a nod to the inferno scenes of HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1964) and other like-minded pepla.

Core beliefs Arbogast 2007

The script -- written by a half-dozen old hands at Italian pepla including Ennio De Concini, Sergio Leone, Duccio Tessari and Sergio Corbucci -- plays less like an adaptation of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel than a "greatest clichés of the sword-and-sandal genre."

Archive 2006-06-25 2006

Freda recognized the opportunity to make this film while directing the action scenes for the epic film MARCO POLO, and made hand-me-down use of its lavish period Asian sets and costumes, as well as the shared duties of enchanting lead actress Yoko Tani, who gives arguably the finest female lead performance in any of the pepla.

Scott the Magnificent 2006

Freda recognized the opportunity to make this film while directing the action scenes for the epic film MARCO POLO, and made hand-me-down use of its lavish period Asian sets and costumes, as well as the shared duties of enchanting lead actress Yoko Tani, who gives arguably the finest female lead performance in any of the pepla.

Archive 2006-01-15 2006

The script -- written by a half-dozen old hands at Italian pepla including Ennio De Concini, Sergio Leone, Duccio Tessari and Sergio Corbucci -- plays less like an adaptation of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel than a "greatest clichés of the sword-and-sandal genre."

THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII reviewed 2006

Though he's best remembered for his work in horror films, Freda was most truly in his element in the realm of historic adventure, and this film allowed him to blend this nobler art with the pulpier, commercial interests of the pepla.

Archive 2006-01-15 2006

One fact that has particularly been driven home by my little retrospective: while Steve Reeves is certainly the once-and-still-reigning icon of the Italian pepla, almost supernaturally handsome and proportioned and with a wooden style of acting that could almost reflect the otherness of a Greek demigod, the finest actor of all the musclebound myth-makers was Gordon Scott.

Scott the Magnificent 2006

One fact that has particularly been driven home by my little retrospective: while Steve Reeves is certainly the once-and-still-reigning icon of the Italian pepla, almost supernaturally handsome and proportioned and with a wooden style of acting that could almost reflect the otherness of a Greek demigod, the finest actor of all the musclebound myth-makers was Gordon Scott.

Archive 2006-01-15 2006

Though he's best remembered for his work in horror films, Freda was most truly in his element in the realm of historic adventure, and this film allowed him to blend this nobler art with the pulpier, commercial interests of the pepla.

Scott the Magnificent 2006

It probably began with the Steve Reeves Hercules / Pepla films, and it's very illuminating to realize how the pepla, the Giallo, the Westerns, the zombie films, and so on were all of a peice with the better known Italian cinema of the time.

davekehr.com 2008