Giant of Marathon

From The Steve Reeves Collection

Sword and Sandal

RetroMedia

R0

Athens is about to be invaded by the Persian Darius and its forces are outnumbered six to one. Some traitors in Athens see the only way to retain their power will be to surrender the city to Darius. Philippides, leader of the City Guard and a recent Olympics winner, has other ideas. He seeks the help of the Spartans whose trained warriors and well equipped fleet may make the difference. As he points out to them, if Athens falls Sparta will be the next one attacked. There follows epic sea and land battles and the Persians, of course, are thoroughly routed.

By sword and sandal standards this film is pretty good. By 1959 the producers and directors had a good grip on the genre and the blatant cheap look of the earlier films was gone although the brief skirts were retained. Steve Reeves’ acting is a bit wooden but all he really has to do is stand there, fight, and flash his nipples at the enemy and the leading lady occasionally. As usual it was made in Italy, but unusually it had a decent budget. The sea battle scenes particularly are impressive and not all the flaky model work see in many such films. The script suffers from the usual “thee” and “thou” that are apparently meant to show deep religious meaning. Or something.

RetroMedia has done a good job enhancing the masters for DVD. This one also includes War of the Trojans, another Reeves classic, so the DVD is good value. It promises “Approx 3 hours of muscle crunching thrills”. If sword and sandal is your thing this DVD is a good one for your collection.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 5 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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