"Peplums" were a genre of films known in English as “sword & sandal films”, where scantily clad muscly men and nubile women would fight and romance in the ancient world (Rome, Greece, etc). The word “peplum” was the name of a diminutive skirt usually worn by men in these films. Ever since Quo Vadis (1912), peplum films had been a staple of the Italian film industry, rather like the Western in America - and like the Western they enjoyed peaks and crests of popularity.
The best-known peplum cycle started with Hercules (1957), starring American bodybuilder Steve Reeves. The film was bought for $120,000 by promoter Joe E Levine who spent several times that publicising its release in the US; to everyone’s surprise, it became a major success, grossing $20 million. A boom promptly followed: from an estimated 16 peplums made in Italy from 1952 to 1958, 42 were made from 1958 to 1959, and 200 were made from 1959 to 1964.
Although Italy was the largest cinema market outside the USA and Italian films accounted for over half the local box-office, Italian filmmakers were increasingly aiming their movies towards the international market – and this meant international stars. By April 1961 it was estimated over 60% of the name players in Italian films were foreigners: Britons and Americans comprising 40%, Frenchmen 22% and Italians 38% (this was not limited to peplum films, but other genres as well). Hollywood actors who appeared in peplums were usually people whose careers were on the way up or on the way down: Yvonne de Carlo, Anita Ekberg, Hildegard Neff, Anne Heywood, Rossano Brazzi, Anthony Quinn, Kirk Douglas, Edmund Purdom, John Barrymore Jnr, Lex Barker, Victor Mature, and Orson Welles. Later on Cornel Wilde, Vincent Price, Jack Palance, Stewart Granger, Alan Ladd, Joan Collins, Rhonda Fleming, Debra Paget, Jeanne Crain, Jayne Mansfield, Victor Mature, Ernest Borgnine, Anthony Steele, and Keenan Wynn also starred in peplums.
Colossus and the Amazon Queen had two American stars: first of all Rod Taylor, who was not a major name at the time but had still been in a number of big-budget studio films; and Ed Fury, a body builder turned actor who had appeared in such works as Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) and Wild Women of Wongo (1958).
The film tells the story of two Trojan War veterans, the fast-talking Pirro (Taylor) and the muscular Glauco (Fury), recruited by two tradesmen to guard the cargo of a ship headed for a secret island destination. The “cargo” turns out to be the crew (including Pirro and Glauco), who have been sold into slavery to the Amazons, a civilisation where the women have the military and political power and the men worry about housework and what they are going to wear. Pirro and Glauco become romantically involved with two women who are each vying to be the next Queen of the Amazons; they end up helping the Amazons fight off some pirates and all ends happily.
The film is certainly cheesy and amateurish, with some shocking continuity and a central thesis that many will find annoying (i.e. that women, no matter how strong and independent, can’t help liking those cute guys). But it is all good natured, the role reversing gags give the film a lot of funny, albeit politically incorrect, humour – it is hard to believe this was ever a drama - and the cast really embrace the spirit of it all. Rod himself is in top form as the smart-aleck Piro; it is a shame he could not have played more parts along this line in Hollywood for he had a gift for broad comedy.
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