Meaty Myths!

[Heraclea]

Many of my favorite films, many European (and especially Italian), are on Youtube, having fallen into the public domain when no one renewed them after 1979.  I give you first --

 

 

Sappho, Venus of Lesbos (1960), starring Tina Louise and Kerwin Matthews.  Directed by Pietro Francisci, who also made the Steve Reeves Hercules and Hercules Unchained.

 

If you want a picture of everyday life on New Colchis, this is about as close as you're gonna get.  Also released as The Warrior Empress. 

 

If you have favorites freely available on video sites, please add them, 

[TraumaTrain]

It's really a shame that not more of Sappho's writings still exist.

[Heraclea]

If anyone asked me what these favorite old films are all about, I'd send them first to:

The Triumph of Maciste, also known as Triumph of the Son of Hercules.  The Sons of Hercules were my introduction to superheroes.  Me and my high school friends would gather to watch these, and then inject them into Latin class whenever we could.  It was also through this medium that I discovered the Marvel Conan comics, which struck me as a version of the same thing, and how I got started on comic books.  This one is from 1961 and stars Kirk Morris as Maciste and Cathia Caro as Queen Tenephis.  It was restored from a better print than the Sons of Hercules version by a fan.   These really were the first superhero series; the character Maciste made dozens of films from 1919 (the silent classic Cabiria, with Bartolomeo Pagano) to the mid 1960s.  In the US, Maciste often turned into Hercules, Samson, Atlas, or Ursus ('the bear' ???) because US audiences did not know the character.  

 

The main thing to notice is how relentlessly kinky these films are, especially for 1961.  Watch and learn.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Heraclea

[Heraclea]

Goliath and the Sins of Babylon with Mark Forest is also enjoyably kinky.