The Happy Moron

Who knew that groundbreaking body builder Steve Reeves spawned the “sword and sandal” genre of film with the 1958 Italian film, “Hercules”?

Well, if you were watching sword and sandal films in 1958, you probably did know that. For the rest of us, it’s news, okay?

“Hercules”, by the way, is now in the public domain and is available from the internet archive. Who knows, it might be featured on an old timey movie review near you.

“The Giant of Marathon” is also in the public domain, and it can be located at certain dollar stores along with many other public domain films. Don’t buy it. Please, please, please, don’t buy it. It’s 33c and it’s not worth the money.

This one is not a winner. This one does not contain valuable cultural education. What this one contains is a body-builder in a loincloth and a reasonably pretty girl in a robe. Now, don’t mistake me; there’s nothing wrong with this, but there’s something terribly flawed with the idea that this is *all* a film needs.

This one is a throwback to the era where films had *stars* and not actors; where stars played roles written for them. Hmm… I wonder what kind of role is written for a body-builder? Does it have another dimension?

This film could still be saved for the modern viewer, except for the fact that stage fighting and special effects have come a long, long way since 1958. I haven’t seen “300“, but I imagine that if you took all the action scenes out of it, you’d get a film similar in quality to “The Giant of Marathon”. It’s an action film, and when the action fails to take, there’s not much left but a beefy guy in a toga. Who can’t act.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give to you, “The Giant Bust of Marathon”