Cristi_Ciopron Why is this epic so good? Because it has J. Tourneur as its director, thus even in a genre movie the director still makes a great difference. This lavish epic is one of the best of its genre, doubtlessly because it has been directed by J. Tourneur, whose consummate knowledge and intelligent subtlety shows, and who restored here the glamour of the genre, somewhat irrespective of the actual script, as if a less schematic, more dramatic script was required, the one he got is passable, the political turmoil is well conveyed (dissensions between Athenians, between Greeks, the Persian threat), but a bit schematic; thus we verify the principle that the director makes the movie, because he makes everything come together and gives it style, even in the unpretentious genre cinema, where a good director is still needed, is still indispensable.'Marathon''s style is very smooth, J. Tourneur taking the script as an occasion for displaying his mastery, thus giving it an almost generic and refined feel, very suitable for an eminently classical story, and highly representative for how the French generally feel the classical age. The evening scene, when Philippides visits the courtesan while the Athenian girls gather at an altar, is refreshing. Prior to the battles, the plowman has two fight scenes, one with a wrestler, another with the henchmen sent to stop his travel to Sparta. This might be the one s & s movie that, by its smoothness and elegance, doesn't resemble structurally the '30s B movies, like most other s & s installments do.The travel, the messaging are a running theme. The leading character is Philippides, and the story ends with his triumph. The lavishness gives poignancy to the landscapes and the sea views.The surreal look of the underwater scenes was ably emphasized.Here Daniela Rocca reminded me of Stefania Sandrelli's look, perhaps the same youthful plumpness.The leading bodybuilders of the '50s and '50s genre cinema were handsome, unlike many of those of the '80s and '90s; even Ursus looked like Dudikoff. The fashion and trend of having athletes and bodybuilders in suitable movies did begin in the '50s, but has been preceded by kindred fashionable movies, like the early epics and some jungle yarns, therefore something else was needed other than showing undressed bodybuilders to begin a trend and a fashion, and one could wonder why the '20s and '30s athletes didn't start this trend ….There are avoidable anachronisms, like the style of Philippides' country home. Also, it seems likely that the director believed less in this movie, which results in it having the look of a trailer, of a video, until the Persians arrive, then the battle scenes, either on ground or on sea, are unrivaled.

funkyfry I'm thinking that it's extremely unfortunate, from the perspective of this film or of those who would like to enjoy this film, that Jacques Tourneur seems to have departed from the production rather early. Certainly the pace of the film is completely dead in the water and the direction is more the listless early style of Mario Bava, who was uncredited for his direction of this film. Bava excelled when he was able to put aside plot and character and just focus on atmosphere, but this film did not allow him to do that. Instead it features many dialog scenes and a rather dull political story that Bava is unable to make digestible. The action scenes are fairly good towards the end, and there are some nice shots with the classic Bava lighting. That's about it.Steve Reeves is our hero, this time appearing (as he did 3 years early in his debut in Ed Wood's "Jailbait") sans beard. He plays Phillipides, an Olympic champion caught up in the Greco-Persian war. He's in love with blonde Andromeda (Mylène Demongeot), whose father Creuso (Ivo Garrani) is part of an aristocratic plot to overthrow Athens' democracy and replace it with a Persian puppet government.The first half of the film is basically setting up the romance and the war, and then in the second half you mostly see Steve Reeves running for what seems like 15 minutes, and then a huge naval battle with some interesting underwater photography.Only a few of the shots in the film seem to bear any mark of Tourneur's style, such as the one that shows the Persian King Darius (Daniele Vargas) framed against his legions of soldiers in extreme closeup to contrast with the background. My guess personally is that Bava directed most of this film. It is a dull film even compared to Bava's Hercules films with Reeves.

By-TorX-1 Hopefully, one day Steve Reeves will get the justice of a really good DVD collection. He deserves no less. Although not the greatest transfer, this movie is fantastic. The battle scenes are great, particularly the underwater sequences, and they are suitably epic. Add to that a great treacherous villain, a complex femme fatale and a truly heroic central character and you have a great movie. Plus, I have to add the allure of Andromeda to my rating. Now, I'm sure that I am probably reading too much in to it, but, many of the battle scenes really evoked scenes from Saving Private Ryan for me (the bullets driving through the water). Spielberg a peplum fan? With Mario Bava holding the camera, why not?

dbborroughs Maybe its the dubbing, but this story of a Greek hero who is at first the key to taking control of Athens and later to beating the invading the Persians, should have worked. Certainly it's the best looking Steve Reeves movie, with some really good action sequences but this movie is awful.If its not the the dubbing then perhaps its the editing and direction which appears to have taken the "lets use every piece of available footage" approach to film construction. Sequences go on and on and on. We Persians invade and we get to see every soldier land in Greece, and we see a boulder crash into a camera. Why couldn't the sequences have been trimmed. It makes things seem last for hours despite it only being 90 minutes long.Another clunker from Reeves.