The Giant of Marathon (1959)

The Film

Inspired by the real life battle, the film does contain a very basic overview of the history (and its associated legends) - most notably the lead character of Phillipides. History remains confused over the existance of  Phillipides and whether he travelled to Sparta to enlist their help, or from Marathon back to Greece to tell of victory. For good measure the script has him do both, but instead of running home to Athens to declare victory, he more heroically carries a warning of a naval attack. This assault itself, as well as most of the Battle of Marathon is pure fiction - in reality the Greeks pushed the Persians back to their ships and sent them fleeing - rather than the stalemate that the battle appears to lead to here.

In tone, the film is certainly different to the typical pepla of the era and much more in the style of a historical epic - this does mean that one of the legends associated with Marathon - the appearance of the god Pan to Phillipides and his aide of the Greeks against the Persians is not shown. In keeping with this more historical tone the first 40 minutes of the film are completely without any action scenes (with the exception of a slightly gratuitous brawl between Phillipides and a wrestler), instead we get some real plot development and characterisation - with political intrigue, characters with hidden motives and lots of secret meetings. This build-up helps to make the inveitable battle scenes all the more tense and the dramatic climax very strong. Even the romantic themes do not feel tacked on and are well combined with the story. Pacing is obviously on the slower side, but the film certainly does not drag and indeed the dialogue scenes actually play better than the overlong fight scenes that often punctuate the sword and sandal movies.

French born director Jacques Tourneur would seem to be curious choice to helm the film; although at the time the Italian film industry was still considered to be recovering from the Second World War and several 'respected' Hollywood directors were brought in to helm the bigger budgeted Sword and Sandal epics (c.f. Robert Aldrich on Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) and Edgar G. Ulmer on Hannibal (1960)). Tourner appears to do some good work, although it is very obvious from watching the film that a lot of the style and 'look' of the project was the work of credited cinematographer Mario Bava - it is widely documented that the impressive battle scenes were entirely his own work and this is readily apparent when these scenes are compared to later Bava projects like Gli Invasori (1961).

As in that film, Bava overcomes a modest budget to give the battle scenes a real epic feel and even more impressive is the underwater photography in the climactic naval battle that was clearly not just filmed in a swimming pool. Less usual for Bava however is the amazing brutality of the battle scenes, with a lot of blood and injury that would be surprising to see in such a film even now. Frequent Bava co-worker Roberto Nicolosi (responsible for the sappy romantic score that almost ruined Black Sunday (1960)) provides a more suitable soundtrack here.

Steve Reeves was the star behind the Peplum boom and was the obvious choice for the lead role here, particularly after his work in the historical-epic Peplum, The Last Days of Pompeii (1959), however the effects of the shoulder injury he sustained there are noticable in his lessened physique here. Fortunately this is rather more appropriate for this particular role where he is require to act more than fight and he gives a surprisingly strong performance throughout. His love interest is played by the stunning and rather scantily clad French actress Mylène Demongeot. Future genre star Sergio Ciani (better known as Alan Steel) gets a brief role playing a Spartan warrior.

Boasting a stronger than usual storyline, some strong direction and brutal epic action scenes but not paying too close attention to the history books, Giant of Marathon is a very enjoyable example of the Historical Epic Peplum, and recommended to fans of both genres. Mario Bava fans should certainly enjoy this one as a chance to see the director's trademark action scenes in use.

In Brief

The DVD

Visuals	Cropped - 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. Colour Generally good print for much of the runtime with good colours and detail and only light grain, but there is quite frequent print damage (sometimes very serious) and dropped frames. Always watchable though.
Audio	English mono - sounds fine most of the time, although there are some drop-outs and jumps.
Subtitles	None.
Extras	None.
Availability	Only as part of the Steve Reeves collection - a two film, single disc collection also featuring War of the Trojans.
Region	Region 0 (ALL) - NTSC
Other regions?	Available on several low quality public domain discs in the US, including a cropped but partly widescreen Alpha DVD.     Alpha DVD left, Retromedia right
Cuts?	The film is believed to be uncut. The American theatrical print was cut of the bloody scenes before release but they are intact here. The print has English titles.

Summary

• An enjoyable film if rather historically inaccurate, with some good and surprisingly brutal epic battle scenes. Recommended.
  

• The print is imperfect but much better than earlier releases and is always watchable.

Links

• IMDB entry

• DVD Rewind - DVD version comparisons.

• Find our reviews of other films directed by Mario Bava, starring Steve Reeves or other Peplum films.

• For explanations of technical terms, see the DVD Dictionary.

All text in this review written by Timothy Young - 12th August 2008.
Text from this review not to be used without authorization.

Please contact: