Caesar the Conqueror (1962)

Original title: Giulio Cesare, il Conquistatore delle Gallie

Peplum/Historical. Italy. Starring Cameron Mitchell, Rik Battaglia, Dominique Wilms, Carlo Tamberlani, Carla Calò & Bruno Tocci. Directed by Tanio Boccia.

Fine (Korea). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

I'm obviously better at buying new copies of this film than at actually sitting down and watching it...

Gladiators Seven (1962)

Original title: I Sette Gladiatori

Peplum. Italy/Spain. Starring Richard Harrison, Livio Lorenzon, Loredana Nusciak & Gérard Tichy. Directed by Pedro Lazaga.

NS (Taiwan). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

Above average gladiator flick, quite fun! 3/5

The Triumph of Robin Hood (1962)

Original title: Il Trionfo di Robin Hood

Robin Hood adventure. Italy. Starring Don Burnett, Samson Burke, Arturo Dominici & Germano Longo. Directed by Umberto Lenzi.

VML (Holland). French language with dutch subtitles. Fullscreen.

You could usually count on Umberto Lenzi to deliver a smashing good time in front of the TV (not counting his awful cannibal films) but this is a terrible Robin Hood film, ridden by inept performances, bland direction and brainmelting attempts at slapstick humour. Only of interest for sad euro-adventure collectors like me. Beware ye who enter here! 1/5

The Seven Tasks of Ali Baba (1962)

Original title: Le Sette Fatiche di Alì Babà

Arabian fantasy. Italy. Starring Rod Flash & Bella Cortez. Directed by Emimmo Salvi.

VCI (Greece). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

Caesar the Conqueror (1962)

Original title: Giulio Cesare, il Conquistatore delle Gallie

Peplum/Historical. Italy. Starring Cameron Mitchell, Rik Battaglia, Dominique Wilms, Carlo Tamberlani, Carla Calò & Bruno Tocci. Directed by Tanio Boccia.

Megastar Video (Holland). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

Hercules Against the Moon Men (1964) + The Witch's Curse (1962)

Original title: Maciste e la Regina di Samar

Peplum. Italy/France. Starring Alan Steel, Jany Clair & Anna Maria Polani. Directed by Giacomo Gentilomo.

DVD: Something Weird (USA). English dubbed. Widescreen. Good quality. This DVD also includes a low quality, fullscreen, shortened US version of Freda's fantastic horror-peplum The Witch's Curse.

Wonderful, mega-cheezy sci-fi/peplum classic! Leave all your pretentions at the door and enjoy the silly ride! (it would take almost 20 years before someone managed to top this one in good-natured, naive silly fun: that one being sci-fi-nerd-turned-director Luigi Cozzi and his adorable little films Starcrash and Hercules I & II) 4/5

Caesar the Conqueror (1962)

Original title: Giulio Cesare, il Conquistatore delle Gallie

Peplum/Historical. Italy. Starring Cameron Mitchell, Rik Battaglia, Dominique Wilms, Carlo Tamberlani, Carla Calò & Bruno Tocci. Directed by Tanio Boccia.

DVD: Historical Cinema Collection (Greece). English dubbed. Widescreen. OK quality.

Pontius Pilate (1962)

Original title: Ponzio Pilato

Biblical/Peplum. Italy/France. Starring Jean Marais, Basil Rathbone, John Drew Barrymore,
Jeanne Crain, Massimo Serato, Livio Lorenzon, Gianni Garko & Paul Muller. Directed by Gian Paolo Callegari & Irving Rapper.

Manhattan Video (Greece). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

The Sword of El Cid (1962)

Original title: La Spada del Cid

Sword. Spain. Starring Roland Carey, Chantal Deberg, Andrés Mejuto, Sandro Moretti, Luis Induni & Daniel Martín. Directed by Miguel Iglesias.

Videotechnics S.A (Spain). Spanish language with no subtitles. Letterboxed.

Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules (1962)

Original title: Maciste Contro i Mostri

Peplum. Italy. Starring Reg Lewis, Margaret Lee, Luciano Marin, Andrea Aureli & Birgit Bergen. Directed by Guido Malatesta.

Pepikahs Video (Greece). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

This is one of those craptastic low budget peplum/fantasy cheeze-fests that italians cranked out like crazy during the early sixties (often starring C-list "actors" like Dan Vadis and Kirk Morris) and that have entertained ten year olds and immature B-movie buffs like myself ever since. Noone would mistake this for a good movie, but it's a minor classic of its kind. It's about our hero Maciste ("Maxus" or "Hercules" in some prints) who basically just walks around in stoneage and slays some monsters, rights a few wrongs or fights a bunch of evil cavemen who likes to kidnap blond cuties in fur bikinis and perfect make-up. What more do you need when Reg Lewis is simply the perfect sword and sandal cheeze hero? Why? He throws a mighty fine boulder, sports a bloody rockabilly due that could only have been made in heaven and delivers his lines with the bombastic and smug diginitide of a peplum God! Why he only got to put on the loin-cloth in this one Cinecittà role I will never understand... 4/5 (entertainment value)

Caesar the Conqueror (1962)

Original title: Giulio Cesare, il Conquistatore delle Gallie

Peplum/Historical. Italy. Starring Cameron Mitchell, Rik Battaglia, Dominique Wilms, Carlo Tamberlani, Carla Calò & Bruno Tocci. Directed by Tanio Boccia.

Athens Video Club (Greece). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

The Sword of Islam (1962)

Original title: Wa Islamah

Arabian adventure. Italy/Egypt. Starring Rushdy Abaza, Lobna Abdel Aziz, Silvana Pampanini, Folco Lulli & Ahmed Mazhar. Directed by Enrico Bomba & Andrew Marton.

EVC (Holland). Italian language with dutch subtitles. Widescreen.

Obscure, but not very good arabian adventure. Good cinematogrophy, nice sets and reasonably fast-paced but the dull and not very dashing hero (played by an egyptian actor instead of a good old american bodybuilder in "arabian" make-up) ruins most of the fun. The italian dub with dutch subtitles didn't help matters either. An egyptian-italian co-production. 2/5

The Invincible Gladiator (1962)

Original title: Il Gladiatore Invincibile

Peplum. Spain/Italy. Starring Richard Harrison & Luisella Boni. Directed by Alberto De Martino & Antonio Momplet.

Worldwide Video (Holland). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

God knows I need three copies of this bland gladiator flick... 2/5

79 A.D

Original title: Anno 79: La Distruzione di Ercolano

Peplum. Italy/France. Starring Brad Harris, Susan Paget & Carlo Tamberlani. Directed by Gianfranco Parolini.

Preview Video (UK). English dubbed. Fullscreen. Long 2 hour version.

Son of Spartacus (1962)

Original title: Il Figlio di Spartacus

Peplum. Italy. Starring Steve Reeves, Jacques Sernas, Gianna Maria Canale & Ombretta Colli. Directed by Sergio Corbucci.

Video Alsen (Greece). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

Solid peplum with Steve Reeves (a class act as usual). Enjoyed this one quite a bit but I have a feeling it would improve a lot when seen in proper widescreen, unlike this pan-and-scanned and generally shitty greek print. 3/5

The Old Testament (1962)

Original title: Il Vecchio Testamento

Biblical/Peplum. Italy/France. Starring Brad Harris, Mara Lane & Carlo Tamberlani. Directed by Gianfranco Parolini.

Videoklubben (Sweden). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

Boring biblical peplum, shot back-to-back with 79 A.D. Parolini should have brought the trampolines and fantastic supermen to ancient Rome! 2/5

Ulysses Against Hercules (1962)

Original title: Ulisse contro Ercole

Peplum. Italy/France. Starring Georges Marchal, Mike Lane, Alessandra Panaro, Gabriele Tinti, Raf Baldassarre, Gianni Santuccio & Yvette Lebon. Directed by Mario Caiano.

Star Video (Finland). English dubbed. Fullscreen. US TV-version.

I only needed to hear the "Mighty Sons of Hercules"-song in the beginning to get in a good mood from this film. A really pulpy and entertaining peplum with some fantastic ingredients, my favorites being the vulture-people and their bigbreasted queen (who of course falls in love with both Hercules and Ulisses). The non-plot is basically that Hercules is on a mission from the gods to find and capture Ulisses for blinding the Cyklops. Ulisses outsmarts Hercules and manages to escape, encounters some fantastic creatures or evil queens, is captured again, outsmarts Hercules, escapes, encounters creatures etc. in absurdum. Of course the two heroes finally becomes the best of friends and joins forces to defeat the evil king Lagos (wonderfully played by Gianni Santuccio), a sweaty, sickly and rambling madmen who likes to torture women and uses his army of neanderthal men to pillage the nearby villages in quest for total power. Silly fun. 3/5

Kerim, Son of the Sheik (1962)

Original title: Il Figlio dello Sceicco

Peplum/Arabian adventure. Italy/France. Starring Gordon Scott, Gordon Mitchell, Moira Orfei, Alberto Farnese & Jany Clair. Directed by Mario Costa.

Video Alsen (Greece). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

Arabian adventure with some peplum under- and overtones. Mario Costa and Gordon Scott delivers another good one! 3/5

The Witch's Curse (1962)

Original title: Maciste All'inferno

Peplum/Horror. Italy. Starring Kirk Morris, Hélène Chanel & Andrea Bosic. Directed by Riccardo Freda.

EVC (Holland). English dubbed. Letterboxed (slightly). The picture is a little stretched out so if you change the aspect ratio on your TV to 1:85:1 you get a pretty good widescreen.

This is one of the most horror influenced and bizarre peplas I have seen, and one of my personal favorites. Our hero Maciste rides in to 17th century Scotland (!), wearing nothing but underwear, to save a maiden from being burned at the stake due to a nasty curse cast by her long dead relative who was a witch. To save the poor girl Maciste has to enter Hell to seek out the witch and make her undo the curse. There he encounters a lion, the magic well of "Kirk Morris-movie flashbacks", monsters and the pittied souls of Hell. A Kirk Morris classic! 4/5

Zorro at the Spanish Court (1962)

Original title: Zorro alla Corte di Spagna

Zorro adventure. Italy. Starring George Ardisson, Carla Calò, Tullio Altamura, Livio Lorenzon, Alberto Lupo,Carlo Tamberlani & Maria Grazia Spina. Directed by Luigi Capuano.

Wahlters Video/Cinehollywood (Sweden). Letterboxed. Very dark print.

Naive Zorro adventure. It was a long time since I saw it but I remember not thinking too much of it. 2/5