Day 70: Joey, You Like Movies about Gladiators?

Today, we leap forward into the past. When I was a wee little sprout, I used to hang out in the basement. (The more things change...)

Here were the key components:

From this simple mix came wonderful Saturday nights.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, my favorite media to consume (although I would never have said that way) were Gladiator movies. Today these movies are called "Sword and Sandals" or to the cognoscenti, 'peplum' (a term coined by French film critics in the 1960s after the Latin word for a Greek style tunic.)

Peplum

The most successful star of this genre was unquestionably Steve Reeves.  Let's look at the career of this man who was born in Glascow, Montana, became a world champion body builder and starred in 16 or 17 (depending on who's counting) pepla.

Mr. America: 1947

Mr. World: 1948

Mr. Universe 1950

Starring as Lt. Bob Lawrence in Jail Bait directed by Ed Wood, 1954

First Sword and Sandal for Steve: 1958

Hercules Unchained: 1959

Goliath and the Barbarians: 1959

Morgan the Pirate:1960

Sandokan the Great: 1963

Vivo per la tua morte: 1968

Steve Reeves wrote A Long Ride From Hell his first and only Western. From the Guardian's obituary of Reeves (May 1, 2000), When Mario Bonnard, the director making The Last Days Of Pompeii in 1959, fell ill during shooting, the film was finished by Sergio Leone, who, watching Reeves at work as the centurion, thought seriously of casting him as the nameless cowboy in A Fistful Of Dollars.

Reeves later told an Italian journalist: "I turned the part down because it seemed to me impossible that the Italians could make a western. I was wrong. And Clint Eastwood was perfect for the part."

A Long Ride From Hell was a box office flop and Reeves retired from acting. He moved to a ranch in Escondido, California where he bred horses and wrote a workout guide Building The Classic Physique, The Natural Way. 

I can't let this go without citing the women of pepla.

Sylvia Koscina

Valerie Lagrange

Virna Lisi

Golden Age????

Sure, I was 11.