Sword & Sandal
Double Feature Volume 1 (VCI)
Picture: Sound: C Extras: D Films:
Sins Of Rome (1954) C C
Giants Of Thessaly (1960) C- C-
Tapping into the market for cheesy Italian pseudo-epics,
VCI is going to start issuing what looks to be a series of double features from
the period when such gaudy imports were about to come in from Italy. Sins Of Rome is actually a black and
white RKO released howler made just before all these films went
widescreen. It is an amusing and
abbreviated version of the Spartacus story five years before Stanley Kubrick
did the best that he could with such material.
Kubrick was never happy with his version, which went on too long, so
this 75-minute version should please many who want to see it as a curio.
Giants Of Thessaly was shot in Totalscope and
Eastmancolor, with a print here that is only slightly letterboxed and color
that has died severely. Can Orpheus
& Jason get the Golden Fleece and defeat various monsters. The favorite version was Jason & The
Argonauts three years later, with the landmark Ray Harryhausen stop-motion
animation. See this one for laughs and
to see how not to do this story.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is also average on both,
showing the hiss from the several-generations down audio. A stills section set to music and trailers
for other such titles form VCI are the only extras. As for Totalscope, it landed up being used on most of the gaudy
widescreen Italian films from 1959 – 1969, with the only artistic exception
being Fellini’s La Dolce Vita in 1960.
Medallion issued Giants Of Thessaly in the U.S. and it has pretty
much been forgotten. Now, we have the
DVD so we can laugh at it all over again.
- Nicholas Sheffo
