Leofwine_draca A late-stage sword and sandal adventure with plenty of added comedy for effect, SEVEN REBEL GLADIATORS sits firmly in the middle of the road when it comes to quality. It's a watchable enough effort with lots of incident and action to fill up the screen, but in terms of plot it's rather predictable and the execution isn't the best either. The action scenes seem a little slow and mannered by genre standards, but then perhaps I've been spoilt by watching the best the peplum film has to offer.The story is about a simple revolt against Roman rule by a bunch of gladiators. The extensive arena fight is the highlight of the movie and features Roger Browne (who went on to star as Argoman in the superhero spoof) as a top fighter who spares the life of his opponents. Appreciating the effort, they spare his life in turn and escape to rebel against the Roman tyrants. Along the way there's time for random cross dressing, whipping in an underground jail, and even an interlude with some troglodyte-style underground tribe members. The humour is rather broad and features a helpful dwarf who has his own circus-style theme tune. Dakar plays in support as the trainer; you may remember him for his later role in ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS and he's great here.

PeplumParadise Billed as a sequel to Seven Slaves Against Rome, though actually with a substantially different bunch of gladiators (of the original seven only Pietro Ceccarelli remains, plus Roger Browne and Arnaldo Fabrizio, while Alfio Caltabiano has switched sides), this is the sort of non-stop romp which makes no sense whatsoever-where it's predecessor was reality based this one is quite bonkers and great fun.It also features the unexpected return of the Mole Men (from the totally unrelated Mole Men Against The Son Of Hercules), or at least their identical twins with white fright wigs intact, who still live in a pretty impressive underground city entered via a trap door under some leaves. In addition to the usual brawls this one does have a few original touches-the scene where the gladiators enter a palace all wearing false beards Is a classic, and a scene where they disguise themselves as dancing girls is quite unique! In addition to Ceccarelli and Browne the gladiators here are played by the familiar faces of Harold Bradley, Mario Novelli, Jeff Cameron, Nazzareno Zamperla and Pietro Torrisi, with Dakar unfortunately only getting a brief but memorable role as their ruthless trainer. Jose Greci, second billed as the love interest, barely gets a look in.I have no clue as to why many of the familiar Italian cast chose to use strange Americanised pseudonyms, mostly adopted solely for this release, even in the films Italian release. Played largely for laughs and with more money spent on sets and costumes than the other films in the series (or at least more leftovers borrowed!), this one is quite outrageous and enjoyably daft from start to finish.This received a wide international cinema release originally, but like so many other sword and sandal movies today is sadly neglected, and the only DVD available anywhere to date is a rather good widescreen (but not letterboxed) Italian release from Eagle. Someone needs to get on the ball and realise that there is a substantial international market for a good quality English language release of these films.