Peplum Films - Background

Background

While Hollywood filmmakers, such as D. W. Griffith with his 1916 Intolerance, peopled their historical epics with dramatic conflicts and realistic protagonists, many of the Pepla merely took a real historical or Biblical event and used it as a backdrop for a simplistic (albeit engrossing), comic book-like heroic adventure tale. The pepla are a specific class of Italian adventure or fantasy films that have subjects set in Biblical, medieval or classical antiquity, often with contrived plots based very loosely on mythology, legendary Greco-Roman history, or the other contemporary cultures of the time, such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, Etruscans, etc. Most pepla featured a supernaturally strong muscleman as the protagonist, such as Hercules, Samson, Goliath, Ursus or Italy's own popular folk hero Maciste. These supermen often rescued captive princesses from tyrannical despots and fought mythological creatures. Not all of the films were fantasy-based however. Many of these films featured actual historical personalities (such as Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Hannibal, etc.), although great liberties were taken with the storylines. Gladiators, pirates, knights, Vikings, and slaves rebelling against tyrannical kings were also popular subjects.