Hercules Unchained (1959)

Original title: Ercole e la Regina di Lidia

Peplum. Italy/France/Spain. Starring Steve Reeves, Sylva Koscina, Sylvia Lopez, Gabriele Antonini, Patrizia Della Rovere, Mimmo Palmara & Daniele Varga. Directed by Pietro Francisci.

Standard Video )Holland). English dubbed. Fullscreen.

The follow-up to Francisci's Hercules is even better than the first one. Essential viewing. 4/5

Herod the Great (1959)

Original title: Erode Il Grande

Historical. Italy/France. Starring Edmund Purdom, Sylvia Lopez, Massimo Girotti, Sandra Milo, Ettore Manni, Alberto Lupo & Sylva Koscina. Directed by Viktor Tourjansky.

Video King APS (Denmark). English dubbed. Widescreen.

This historical spectacle is noteworthy for the excellent performance by Purdom as the paranoid and half-mad king Herod. The dramatic ending have an almost Bava-esque gothic horror feel. Above average stuff by a director who've been around since the silent days. Appears to have had pretty high budget for an italian production. This 30 year old danish VHS looks like a blu-ray compared to pan-and-scanned, piss quality UK DVD I had earlier. 3/5

Hercules Unchained (1959)

Original title: Ercole e la Regina di Lidia

Peplum. Italy/France/Spain. Starring Steve Reeves, Sylva Koscina, Sylvia Lopez, Gabriele Antonini, Patrizia Della Rovere, Mimmo Palmara & Daniele Varga. Directed by Pietro Francisci.

DVD: Concorde (Germany). English or german language options. Widescreen. Nice quality.

The follow-up to Francisci's Hercules is even better than the first one. Essential viewing. 4/5

Hercules (1958)

Original title: Le Fatiche di Ercole

Peplum. Italy/Spain.

Starring Steve Reeves, Sylva Koscina, Fabrizio Mioni, Gianna Maria Canale, Arturo Dominici & Mimmo Palmara. Directed by Pietro Francisci.

DVD: Concorde (Germany). English and german language options. Widescreen. Nice quality. It's has a few seconds worth of insignificant cuts though, so the french disc is preferable for the peplum aficianado. But this disc also have the best version of Hercules Unchained, so both discs are needed.

The original muscleman epic! Not my all time favorite peplum but still, classic stuff. 4/5

Hercules (1958)

Original title: Le Fatiche di Ercole

Peplum. Italy/Spain. Starring Steve Reeves, Sylva Koscina, Fabrizio Mioni, Gianna Maria Canale, Arturo Dominici & Mimmo Palmara. Directed by Pietro Francisci.

DVD: DVDY (France). English and french language options. Widescreen. Nice quality.

The original muscleman epic! Not my all time favorite peplum but still, classic stuff. 4/5

The Last Roman (1968)

Original title: Kampf um Rom I

Peplum/Historical. West Germany/Italy/Romania. Starring Laurence Harvey, Orson Welles, Sylva Koscina, Harriet Andersson, Lang Jeffries & Robert Hoffmann. Directed by Robert Siodmak, Andrew Marton (uncredited) & Sergiu Nicolaescu (uncredited).

VCL (Holland). English language. Fullscreen.