In the post-war years the development of neo-realism; the brainchild of auteur Roberto Rossellini would give way to demands for a new grander look toward Italian films. The flamboyance of the historical epic was precisely what the good doctor ordered. Alessandro Blasetti's Fabiola (1949) was made on an excessive budget and would channel yesterday's silent epics. The genre boasted a good run. The French critics as per would find the quintessential term to label such : and the genre was officially christened peplum (from the Latin version of the Greek word peplos; meaning a woman's shawl or long, billowy dress).
The peplum reaped international notice with Le Fatiche di Ercole (Hercules,1958) but its origins reached back to the early 1950s. Riccardo Freda's Spartaco (Spartacus the Gladiator) Pietro Franscici's La Regina de Saba (The Queen of Sheba,1952) and Atilla flagello di Dio (Atilla the Hun,1955). Mario Camerini's Ulisse (Ulysses,1954) and Guido Brignone's Le schiave di Cartagine (The Sword and the Cross,1956) showed the emergence of certain stylistic points ; basic concept like that of freedom and equality were conveyed in avowedly popular terms; moral and sexual stereotypes were placed in remote historical eras; and there was a move away from the spectacle of Hollywood towards a lower-key sensuality. As entertainment, they exuded a sheer energy that walked a perilous tightrope between vulgarity and vitality.
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| He Reeves very little to the imagination. |
Pietro Francisci provided the missing element which completed the equation of success. In search of a shiny new gimmick, some Italian producers took on Steve Reeves (1926-2000), an attractive American bodybuilder who at the time was doing cabaret work in the States on the strength of his Mr. Universe title. His first foray into peplum was the quickie Hercules with co-stars Sylva Koscina and Gianna Maria Canale. The resulting film was bought cut-rate by American producer Joseph E. Levine and heavily plugged in the U.S.A. where it grossed over $5 million. The follow-up, Ercole e la Regina di Lidia (Hercules Unchained,1959), also crashed through the box-offices. The musclemen had arrived to complement the scantily-clad pneumatic heroine counterparts, thus providing the tried and true formula for the commercial success of the peplum.
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| Status Quo Vadis (1951), LeRoy's Sgt Peppers;a costume-epic was born |
As the Italian cinema cultivated its native epic genre, Hollywood companies set up grand scale productions in Europe and brought large casts and crews to both Italy and Spain. Mervyn LeRoy's notable remake of Quo Vadis? (1951) provided the definitive impetus for a spate of costume pictures.
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| One of the Sword & Slipper sweethearts - Miss Debra Paget |
However there was a world of difference between the Italian peplum and the Hollywood epic. The first was made on the cheap and produced fast and furiously while the second was shot on a grand scale over longer periods with a seemingly boundless budget. Quo Vadis?, Knights of the Round Table (1953) Helen of Troy (1955) Alexander the Great (1956) The Vikings (1958) and Ben-Hur (1959) all exploited European facilities such as the kinder tax rates, the relative cheapness of labor and the opportunity to release the once-frozen capital that Hollywood companies would amass in Europe.