So I’ve got a collection of 50 peplum on CD and I’ve been watching them and a couple of questions have occurred to me:
Who was the original audience for these films? Obviously, Italian filmgoers, but were they considered general audience films for adults (not porn, obviously, just films that an adult audience might watch, as opposed to something aimed strictly at children. The peplum that were imported into the US seem for the most part to have been kiddie matinee fodder. Were they kiddie matinee fodder in Italy?
I have noticed that the male leads in the movies walk about in pretty much the equivalent of brief swim trunks throughout the movie, whereas the female leads are often, though not always, clad in baggy tunics that often conceal their bodies from neck to ankle. It’s not a burka, but it’s pretty damn concealing. So, why are the men running around practically nekkid and the women all covered up? Anyone who has watched Airplane! (“Do you like gladiator movies, Billy?”) or Rocky Horror Picture Show (“We can watch a few old Steve Reeve movies”) is aware that gays have picked up on the naked men factor. Was it gay thrills flying under the radar? The only rational alternate explanation I can come up with is that censors in Italy were indifferent to male nudity, so long as the genitals and butt were covered, but very sensitive to female nudity – pretty much how American censors of the 60s were oriented. (Remember the "no navel’ rule for Jeannie on “I Dream of Jeannie?”)
I dunno if the Dopers will know, but I know we have some heavy duty film buffs who might know, I mean, hey, you fellows sure seem to know your 3D insect fear films!
Stola would probably describe a lot of the baggy tunics nicely. I hope, however, that you are not suggesting that historical versimilitude is the reason the women wear the baggy tunics. If you are, I am compelled to remind you that this is a genre which has Hercules fighting the Mongols in Poland and Thor fighting Amazon women in southern Italy. Historical verisimilitude? No. Not an important thing. Some of the scriptwriters knew their chops, but … historical verisimilitude? No. Just … no.
You bring up interesting questions. I’ll see if I can ask my dad at some time. He was very much into cinema at the time, when he was a young man, and I think he even appeared as an extra once or twice - he told me at the time many young men would hang around the entrance to Cinecittà in Rome hoping to be noted and picked up by some director.
I recall Hercules and Hercules Unchained playing at standard theater times, to standard audiences. it wasn’t kiddie matinee stuff. (I even recall going with my parents to see “Hercules Unchained” and asking why there wasn’t a “Hercules Chained”, then.)
Not all such films were completely ludicrous. I remember seeing The Colossus of Rhodes, which was a historical epic with no mythological stuff, and which seems to have vanished without a trace. I haven’t seen it since in syndication, on cfable, on VHS, or DVD.
Of course, people must’ve realized how ludicrous it was all getting, because the Hercules films quickly wound up on TV - and not the big networks, but the small independents. And films like Perseus against Medusa (released here as “Son of Hercules against the Gorgon” – even though Hercules was Perseus’ great-to-the-fourth grandkid – went straight to those indie stations, without even hitting the theaters (despite the fact that it had mechanical effects by Carlo Rambaldi, who would later do the 1976 version of King Kong and the costume for Alien)
Look at it this way – a decade later such apparent Kiddie Matinee stuff as the Japanese/European wonder The Green Slime was playing prime time in my local theater, even though it’s prime MST3K fodder.
As promised, I had a chat with my dad not long ago. He basically confirmed CalMeacham’s point of view: those movies were seen as big, epic blockbusters in their own time and country, and people of all ages and trades would go and watch them. They’d be repeated over and over for whole days, he said, so that even if you were late for, say, the first half, you could just remain in for the next projection to catch it and make sense of the story.
Those movies might not impress you, but you have to understand they were made in an impoverished country that was nevertheless quickly rebuilding, right after a lost war, in a time where going to the cinema was one of the most appreciated means for escapism. They were really BIIIIIG deals, but done on the cheap - one of these peplum adventures was made with very few pieces of scenery (four? five?) that were creatively rotated and reused, as a bet.
And my dad wasn’t in any movie, apparently. He just hung out outside the gates of Cinecittà with his mates, hoping to become an extra in some movie or other, but nothing ever came of it.
Thanks, I had sort of figured it was something like that … big deal movies in their home country with America a secondary, but probably very lucrative, market. And they did some great things on those tiny budgets, in some of the movies the sets and staging are eye-opening. I mean, Thor and the Amazon Women had some amazing sets and costuming, and it wasn’t exactly a historical epic. I’m guessing extras and people to build sets were quite reasonably priced.Some of the fight scenes were great, too … Colossus and the Headhunters had some really rousing action sequences. A very interesting mix, though sadly, most of the copies I’ve seen are from a DVD set called “Warriors” and the quality is very low … almost all the color is leached right out of most of them.
Hmm, your post got me wondering if Cinecitta had an unexpectedly great stock of sets, props and costumes precisely because of Italy’s fascist period and Mussolini’s personal interest in supporting the Italian film industry (in large part, it must be said, to use it for propagandistic purposes). Point being, for years, the Italian studio[s] benefitted from state support and government-commissioned (or mandated) films.
I love those movies. I wish TCM would show them early on weekend mornings, they’re perfect background while looking at the newspaper and having coffee.