The Madame Aema Franchise

I now bring you Madame Aema, the longest-running and most popular franchise in Korean film history. It’s pornography.

On my rare porno-watching days, I doth feel the need to protest too much, and justify my actions. This blog is founded upon watching all theatrical franchises (meaning four or more, with weird rules governing remakes and other effluvia). Pornography counts, out of a sense of completion, though surely I’m not about to deal with the multitude of video sequels (which proliferate solely around adherence to a niche fetish). Rather, I aim to be as calm and unexploitative when recounting heaving torrents of flesh. In the case of the Madame Aema films, I am aided in my prudishnesh by the franchise’s complete lack of availability.

Yeah, decades old South Korean pornography is not readily available – who’d-a-thunk it? None of my usual obscurity resources turn anything up (“aema” alone reveals nothing on YouTube, even). I’m not about to wander into the local Koreatown neighborhood and announce to some shopkeep that “Yes, uh, hello. Hi. I’m looking for eleven specific antique South Korean pornography movies that – Oh, you have Kim-Dong Ill? No, sorry, I can’t you that mo- Heyyyyy!”

And simply Googling “South Korean pornography” causes my computer to have probskllxzcA $RW)POXZSA A .*&^


Anyway…Madame Aema can owe its existence to a loosening of censorship upon Korean film in 1982. This often seems to be the way it is, that once greater sex and violence are allowable in a medium, that medium starts genuinely experimenting with that freedom. Hence the loss of the Hays Code in favor of a rating system led to movies like A Clockwork Orange and Midnight Cowboy, whose initial ratings were actually concurrent with what we’d now call pornography: NC-17s, though both are now simply Rs. A discussion for another day and another franchise should explore the very notion of mainstream adult erotica. That franchise would be France’s Emmanuelle, and it seems to have been the inspiration behind Madame Aema.

That inspiration governs what I know of Madame Aema’s plot, about a married woman exploring extramarital affairs in order to broaden herself and enter sexual knowingness, in that particular 1970s sense. Evidently, the tone is similar too, striving for softcore erotica in favor of explicit grotesquery. This is kind of an interesting cinematic movement, erotica, in that it attempts to titillate using subtlety and innuendo instead of graphic sexuality. It hopes to be publicly acceptable, to sexually inspire its audience without catering to raw animal lust. This sounds a most challenging proposition, to skate that thin edge just this side of outright pornography. It’s an endeavor of an earlier time, before video moved adult entertainment back into the realm of niche – not that pornography itself nowadays isn’t successful (far from it!), but excepting Pirates (no link provided, because that one is pornography) there isn’t much output which aims for all viewers at once.

That’s what I mean by “niche” – “fetish,” basically, specialization so extreme, it rather negates grander cinematic artistry. Though a luminary no lesser than Stanley Kubrick once boasted, in his megalomania, that he had the skills to actually make a full-on pornography movie, and still make it as artful as 2001 (in his mind, A Clockwork Orange doesn’t float that NC-17 bill). The nearest thing we got is Eyes Wide Shut, which ain’t quite there either, and I’m sure Kubrick would say so much.


Okay, so back to Madame Aema. Its object of sexual awakening is housewife Oh Su-bi (Ahn So-young). She’s emphatically not named “Aema,” because that’s actually a portmanteau, of either 愛馬婦人 or 愛麻婦人, meaning “Horse-Lovin’ Lady.” This is thankfully not a literal meaning, or I’d perhaps ban myself from the Internet. Instead, it’s presumably common Korean slang, basically their way of saying “Sexaholic Whorebag.” Only, you know, artfully.

So Oh Su-bi’s husband Shin Hyun-wu (Lim Dong-jin – heh heh, “Dong”) has lo these past two years been in prison for homicide. Despite her devotion to him, and despite his evidence of marital villainy (like a Tyler Perry antagonist), Oh Su-bi engages in affairs with certain other fellows in her apartment complex. One paramour disgusts her with his perverted sexual predilections (I am glad my research doesn’t turn up greater details, considering what I’ve seen in non-pornographic Korean film!); another contrasts that with “pure love.” Divorce and France are tossed about, perhaps in direct reference to the Asian-set French Emmanuelle, but in the end Oh Su-bi stays with her husband, now released, and I’m not sure what they’re getting at from this synopsis in terms of female rights or the sexual revolution or the sanctity nor marriage or any pertinent themes.


Trying to get deeper, as it were, into the truth behind director Jeong In-yeob’s artistry, I delve into the wonderful realm of Korean websites (making a point of avoiding North Korea’s self-serving, narcissistically hilarious propagandography). Here’s what I discover (NSFW-ish), in a historical evaluation of the Aema phenomenon:

“70년대를 풍미했던 나 같은 이른바 호스티스영화가 남녀의 육체가 포개질 때 ‘컷’을 외쳤던 반면 은 억눌려 있던 포르노적 욕망을 집중적으로 분출시켰다. 극단적인 클로즈업과 성애를 갈구하는 노골적인 환상이 그때는 정말 충격이었다. 80년대의 아이들은 애마의 풍만한 가슴에 매달려 걸음마를 배웠다..”

Then again, run through Babel Fish:

“70's flavor me which does the hostess movie piled up the flesh of the man and woman what is called is same and at the time of quality the other side which shouts `cuts ' hundred million gushed the porno desire which is being pushed intensively. The claw [cu] which is extreme [ep] with the characteristic child will go and the fantasy which is outspoken buys that time was true shock. 80's the children a toddle was hung in the breast which the pet horse is plump and learned.”

That’s just maddeningly unhelpful.


Madame Aema inspired a wave of copycat Korean erotica throughout the ‘80s. Completely by assumption, I imagine it somewhat like the earlier Franco-Japanese In the Realm of the Senses, in that it makes a genuine effort to combine art house impulses and semi-explicit sexuality. It is likely a lot like the “pink films” which had already dominated Japanese culture – forever it seems Korean culture is in a game of hot potato with Japan. Like those pink films, the post-Aema Korerotica blurred the distinction twixt mainstream and sexploitation, often competing alongside more traditional film types for regular, non-pornography awards and distinctions. It was basically a legitimate genre, not a separate branch of moviemaking, as evidenced by maybe Aema’s greatest inheritor, Mulberry – that one won Best Film, Actress and Actor among Korean film critics, so unless the nation is completely inundated with leering perverts (…likely), these are clearly more than just stag films.


Looking over a synopsis for Madame Aema 2 (1984) confirms so much. Oh Su-bi (which now appears to be the actress’ name, as the character is now called “Madame Aema” – I dunno) is now divorced, and fielding another pair of potential suitors, embodying varying philosophies on sex, love and marriage. Seemingly, 2 comes squarely to the conclusion that those various ideas do diverge, as Aema (I’m just gonna call the protagonist that from now on) rejects matrimony. Alongside tactful descriptions of velvety, soft-focus love (likely with foreground objects doing Austin Powers wang-hiding duty, a “pink movie” tradition), there are descriptions of other scenes you mightn’t expect from erotica. Scenes like Aema collecting butterflies, or riding a saddleless horse along the shore – toplessness optional. Whatever the actual tonal effect of these moments, they’re clearly something you won’t find in your average Skinemax epic.


Certainly by 1985’s Madame Aema 3, Aema is no longer the same woman – this is evident partly because of new lead actress Kim Boo-seon, and partly because this Aema finds herself stuck in a loveless marriage to an entirely new foil, Professor Noh. Of course, it would be too much to ask for one Aema to endlessly sexually reawaken on a schedule concurrent with popular film cycles, so basically resetting the stage allows them to run through the same plot sans justification. So again Aema (or Emma, as they’ve now gone with) dabbles in affairs, now with a professional wrestler. Then due to her husband’s huge load (of research), she “wanders the streets in despair.” That’s a hell of an ending!

I guess I’d better start examining this specifically as a series at some point. A series is defined by repetition, and that’s something pure, raw sex undoubtedly can deliver. Eroticism perhaps cannot, as the more often naked genitalia are waggled artfully before us, the less artful that becomes. One pictures Aema, and the rest of Korea’s “folk erotic” movement, getting tugged by the dichotomous dictates of the Criterion mentality, and the trench coat crowd. With more entries, the nearer it gets to the latter, and so the Aema cycle bows out early in the mid-‘80s, dignity still intact.


Enter the ‘90s! In the desperate rush before video completely destroyed the viability of theatrical adult film (which had its last mainstream “hurrah” in the U.S. with Showgirls), the years 1990 through 1995 saw a relative avalanche of Aemae, butter-churning out eight sequels in that time. That means two years (1992, 1993) doubled up.

Each entry now welcomes a new cast, always a new Emma, with no continuity between films. Instead, all explore the same thematic ground, as Emma doubts her marriage, has some sex elsewhere, her husband likely does the same, then each resolves either in divorce or faithfulness. From the summaries (and stills on the Korean Movie Database) these things are kind of like those Danielle Steele books – you know, the ones with Fabio on the cover.

There is no ultimate trajectory for a series preoccupied with repetition, with variations on a formula as if it were simply a subgenre, so like a subgenre it simply becomes a waiting game, to see how many of these things can happen before people simply tire of them. There’s evidently so much similarity between sequels now, I’ll only amuse myself with identifying the ways in which they differ…


Madame Aema 4 (1990): This one appears the first where the husband’s affairs dictate matters. By all evidence, the Emma has herself some fornication too. Otherwise, not much to report, except Emma has a daughter too, which drives emotion, but doesn’t appear to have a bearing on the series’ sexual promiscuity.

Madame Aema 5 (1991): Two daughters now. Also, the usual sordid tales are set at a ski resort, possibly in Japan. This is a change from the usual setting, which by all evidence is Korea’s Jeju Island.

Madame Aema 6 (1992): This one is interesting. It makes note of the rotating roster of so-called Emmas, and actually imagines a multi-generational family of women, all of them somehow named Emma. Not sure how this works, nor how you can have three sisters all with the same name. Whatever’s going on, it allows for a greater quantity of adult angles, which undoubtedly means there’s less actual thoughtfulness. And with the female cast thus expanded exponentially, things start to resemble more traditional male-centric pornography, while the series has previously distinguished itself with its genuine feminine point of view.


Madame Aema 7 (1992): One Emma. A performance artist. Performance art utilized as a perversion enabler. That is all.

Madame Aema 8 (1993): Two Emmas, both of them dancers. One gets married, the other doesn’t, yet each has differing opinions on the institution. This one sides with marriage in the end.

Madame Aema 9 (1993): Emma has an affair, then returns to her husband. There doesn’t appear to be anything noteworthy here.

Madame Aema 10 (1994): During an Emma’s expected marital separation, she lives with a female friend. The series now wholeheartedly delves into lesbianism, which has received at least minor consideration before. Well, dudes love that stuff! But to counter this potential slide into pandering, the token male adulterer is named simply Mr. F. Ignore your immediate “Arrested Development” impressions, for this is possibly a variation on French genre standards like Story of O, indicating the Aemae still intend occasional sophistication.

Madame Aema 11 (1995): The sex stuff in the final entry seems de rigeur. Rather, it’s the tertiary details which appear unique. Like some sci-fi/gangster movie, Emma’s husband develops a “revolutionary new technology” – I picture an Inception dream invading tech, perhaps. Then the Yakuza burst in and interrupt sex scenes for the rest of the movie!


Then the series abruptly ends, without celebration, as it has transitioned into a niche realm by 1995, and Korea’s flirtation with erotica has subsided. Which leaves the most noteworthy days of Madame Aema well in the past, and makes conclusions hard to come by. So I’ll just wander on off in a most anticlimactic manner, and leave it at that…

[Sound of me strolling out of my apartment.]

[Sound of door closing.]

[Long, empty silence.]

Maciste, Nos. 8 - 20 (1962 - 1964)

It’s time once again to switch back over to Maciste, and cover a little ground here in anticipation for the GREAT CROSSOVER. Seven movies down, we have sixteen to go (and we’ll have to stop and look at the Ursus franchise at some point too). (There’s a final Maciste which follows the GREAT CROSSOVER, but forget it for now.) Fortunately, from a certain perspective, most of the remaining Macistes are unavailable for convenient viewing, allowing for a day of laziness and speculation.

Because it is consistently unclear how these films were produced, the easiest thing to do is to ignore release order (mostly), and instead focus upon the great Macistean actors, and their chunks of work.


MARK FOREST (The greatest – i.e. most prolific – Maciste of all, of Maciste in the Valley of the Kings and Maciste, the Strongest Man in the World.)

Maciste, the World's Strongest Gladiator (1962): This is among the most obscure of all pepla, so information is pretty scant. In it, Maciste tries to rescue a tyrannized kingdom from the rule of an evil seductress queen (Scilla Gabel this time), while – Okay, that’s the story of every movie covered today. Spelling that out is like explaining that people die in a horror movie.

As part of Maciste’s time- and space-jumping shenanigans, this one takes place in Asia (in someplace called Mersabad), though the images I can find look as Roman as anything else. In it, Maciste goes undercover as a gladiator in order to get close to the seditious elements in the government, as other gladiators fight to stop him.
It’s the Gladiator plot, more or less, though more pertinently is reflects director Michele Lupo’s other gladiatorial efforts, like Seven Slaves Against the World and Seven Rebel Gladiators. Yes, the Maciste movie invokes seven gladiators as well. (And NO Seven Samurai connection!)

Maciste, the World's Greatest Hero (1963): Michele Lupo continues imprinting his unique vision upon the Mark Forest Maciste movies, this time taking the exact same story to Babylon, meaning they’ll have to drape a slightly different-looking leopard hide over the scenery. The specific form of oligarchic mismanagement Maciste is battling this time? The yearly sacrifice of 30 nubile, comely virgins. What a waste! Maciste goes to prevent this, not by devirginificating all the sacrificees, but through the standard method of throwing big things at anonymous royal soldiers, and possibly seducing/getting seduced by the queen.

Of note – Babylon’s vile ruler Xandros is played by Italy’s cherished Guiliano Gemma, who later headlined in a few of the Ringo Spaghetti Westerns.


Maciste, Gladiator of Sparta (1964): Forest at last ditches Lupo for another director of similar talents, Mario Caiano. And with all the temporal indecisiveness, Maciste still cannot resist the siren call of Ancient Rome. So it’s a genuine, historical (at least, as much as cheap Italian genre fare is willing) take on the conflict between the Romans and early Christians. This means there is at least some justification for the essential once-per-film lion wrestling scene.
Qualitatively, this seems to be no better or worse than anything else in its movement. It’s all becoming one big blur.

ALSO BY FOREST, TO ACTUALLY BE WATCHED:

Maciste vs. the Mongols (1963)

Maciste in Genghis Khan’s Hell (1964)


KIRK MORRIS (Of the tremendously crappy Maciste vs. the Headhunters.)

Maciste in Hell (1962): In Maciste’s 1960s craze to be a perfect shadow of the Hercules series, its version of Hercules in the Haunted World had to come about at some point. That means an overt embrace of the more fantastical peplum elements, as Hercules – excuse me, Maciste – travels into the underworld to confront a witch who has cursed the Earth, or some such. This witch Fania (Hélène Chanel) no doubt conforms to the usual evil queen dynamic, for as idiosyncratic as this entry seems to be. Then cue duels against lion, eagles, giants, snakes, oh my.

Even with that, Maciste in Hell is an odd duck indeed. Time Lord Maciste is now in 17th century Scotland, presumably still sporting the skimpy-toga-and-nothing-else fashion combo so favored by the Greeks of yore. No explanation asked for or given. Hercules-aping aside, there is precedent for doing this with Maciste, as a 1925 film under the same name did likewise with the silent series.

Directorially, Maciste in Hell comes to us from Riccardo Freda, which is not for nothing. A prolific director of Italian sword-and-sandal epics even before it was cool (1953’s Sins of Rome), Freda is best known for his horror work, especially The Horrible Dr. Hichcock and The Ghost, much like…like Mario Bava, director of Hercules in the Haunted World. In fact, Bava was cinematographer on some of Freda’s earlier adventure films, Freda’s true love (he never had much use for horror, despite his reputation in the field). The learner became the master, as Bava wonderfully wed surrealistic horror with peplum nonsense. So as Bava did for the Herc, Freda did for Mac. What an interesting little horrific showdown within the greater beefcake world of Hercules & Co.


The Triumph of Maciste (1962): Next location – Memphis. That’s Egypt, I presume, and not Tennessee. Maciste battles an evil queen, ho hum, virgins are now getting sacrificed to the God of Fire, was there always so little sense of experimentation in most of these? The Feats of Strength™ all sound culled from former, greater Herculeseseses. And since there’s a volcano (what for the sacrificin’), cue the same cruddy eruption footage which shamed Maciste vs. the Headhunters. Justification for this film’s utter tediousness, even in secondary materials, is its director, Tanio Boccia, presumably a lifelong apathetic who shot films with the mechanical disinterest of a porn star nearing retirement. He’s occasionally called Italy’s Ed Wood, only without the joy de vivre which makes Ed’s travesties so marvelous.


Maciste at the Court of the Czar (1964): Okay, so it’s Russia now.

By 1964 (and we’re jumping around a bit in order to address the actor clumps), the sword-and-sandals movement was dying out, stagnating, and without creativity in regards to the fundamental issues of structure or tone. The only solution was a desperate gambit to plug the formula into increasingly-inappropriate settings. So we take Maciste, unaltered from the Greco-Roman-Egypto-Judeo-Pan-Asian original model, and splat him down into pre-revolutionary Czarist Russia. It’s cold there, by the fur hats the less buff dudes wear, but Maciste is still perfectly comfortable in his PG-rated nudity, and anxious to stab Cossacks.

The token plot: Maciste is sent by the Czar (or Csar, or Tzar, or Tsar) on a treasure hunt. Then the Czar tries to kill him when he returns. Evil queen: Ombretta Colli, as Sonia.

Valley of the Thundering Echo (1964), aka Maciste and the Women of the Valley, double-aka Hercules of the Desert, originally La valle dell’eco tonante: Innocent land protected by the natural barrier that is the Valley of The Thundering Echo. Queen Farida (evil, Hélène Chanel again, meh) wants to conquer this land. The innocent people summon Maciste as their protector, brought forth directly from the rock itself.

Huh?! This is the first time they’ve gone that far in literalizing the meaning of Maciste’s name (in Italian, it roughly means “of the rock”). There have been hints at it before, but never this. Otherwise, this movie (whatever its name is) sounds like among the most boring, thankless, desultory of all pepla. Which means it’s another of Tanio Boccia’s efforts.


ALAN STEEL (Nee Gianfranco Parolini.)

Zorro vs. Maciste (1963): It’s 1963 now, and soon enough to start the great, suicidal search for a new peplum setting. Like the Samson series, Zorro vs. Maciste settles upon swashbuckler-era Spain. This is really in order to fashion a title which suggests, spuriously, that we’ve a mighty muscleman crossover, much like the dreadful Maciste vs. Hercules in the Vale of Woe, or Hercules, Samson and Ulysses, or the upcoming and unnamed GREAT CROSSOVER. This is not the case.

Yes, Maciste is running up against the famous swordsman Zorro (transplanted into 16th century Spain from 18th century California, because the Italians don’t care), but this has nothing to do with any other Zorro movies. How’s that? Well, Zorro originated in literature, not film, and thus his use in film constitutes different rules of continuity and franchise – much like the disparate number of Sherlock Holmes movies, or even Hercules himself (whose non-pepla have nothing to do with the Reeves series). Still, a known name like “Zorro” holds more sway than, say, Maciste in the Land of Conquistadors or whatever the hell.

We know Maciste and Zorro (or Zorraux, really) must fight, then team up and fight a greater foe. It’s the pattern of most such matchups, in true “Batman vs. Superman” senses. This means an outside force will initially put the two heroes at each others’ necks. Fortunately, every peplum comes with a factory-installed dichotomy, the good girl and the evil girl. So in this case, each one yearns to inherit the throne of the deceased rey; the goodie hires trusty Maciste, while Zorro becomes the bitch’s tool.

The only question is who’ll play opposite Alan Steel’s unemotive frame as Zorro? Frenchman Pierre Brice, who most famously plated a Native American in Germany’s homegrown Karl May westerns. Here playing a Californian-turned-Spaniard. There is some weird nationalistic stuff going on here.

ALSO BY STEEL, TO ACTUALLY BE WATCHED:

Maciste and the Queen of Samar (1964) (More amusingly titled Hercules Against the Moon Men!)


REG PARK (The best Hercules not named Steve Reeves.)

Maciste in King Solomon's Mines (1964): Maciste hears about cruel enslavement, people worked silly in some tyrant’s mines. He goes to rescue them, and due to his own unintelligence, instead becomes yet another slave – because of the fetishistic “pleasures” people get in seeing burly fellows enchained. Basically, it sounds like Maciste, the Strongest Man in the World or that Hercules movie I watched 2 days ago whose name I forget. The only new detail is the latest magical plot device of destiny, an ankle bracelet which causes Maciste to lose his free will. In Italy, that’s called an “acting contract.”


REG LEWIS (Not to be confused with the same-named English footballer with an actual Wikipedia page.)

Maciste vs. the Monsters (1962): Or “Monster,” really. Singular. One. A sea monster, which Maciste (or Maxxus, in the U.S.) defeats for the Sun People. Then he frees them from the cruel yoke of the Moon People, because if we’ve learned anything from Maciste, it’s that sun = good, moon = bad. I can understand these childish sexual dichotomies and even the racist stuff on occasion, but I don’t get this whole anti-moon agenda.

Not much else to say about this one. It seems to take place in the Ice Age, which is nothing new. It has a 3.9 on the IMDb, which is actually pretty high for this type of movie. Still, having not seen the papier maché beastie on display, this is just a big question mark. And I’m happy to leave it that way.


ED FURY (Isn’t he one of the Avengers?)

Maciste vs. the Sheik (1962): It’s another sword-and-sandals-by-way-of-swashbuckler, which by now is starting to feel as tired as the classic Roman thing. It’s the Maciste take on the Moors, which I cannot imagine turning out tastefully. An alternate title is Maciste in Africa, meaning a franchise which treats Africans like sambo-dancing watermelon enthusiasts is now focusing upon that lamentable caricature. I’m glad I didn’t see this, and good riddance to you, Ed Fury. Go back to doing your Ursus movies, which we’ll get to soon enough.


RICHARD LLOYD (Also known as Iloosh Khoshabe, an Iranian briefly granted peplum obscurity prior to overall obscurity.)

The Invincible Brothers Maciste (1964): When one Maciste isn’t enough (basically because Italy was never satisfied with Khoshabe’s solo genre contributions), we have two, the Elder and the Younger (Mario Novelli). Also an evil queen, Thaliade, an evil prince, Akim, and a boring nonentity, Jana. And a nice girl, Nice. Yes, Nice.

Much standard loincloth gobbledygook, enlivened only by the magical Waterfall of Mind Control. Also, and underground race of leopard men. This one is so danged obscure, most of this information comes courtesy of the New York Times’ 71-word “review” from 1964.


Only one more (for today)!

SAMSON BURKE (A Canadian. His most famous film: The Three Stooges Meet Hercules.)

Totò vs Maciste (1962): Well this one, at least, is a change of pace! At last a peplum with some tonal differences! Not just the usual body ogling and sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-Spartacus-ing. This one’s a parody!

Well, wait, they tried this general approach in a previous Maciste/Hercules mash-up, Vale of Woe – which is the absolute worst sword-and-sandals I’ve seen, which is saying something. This one seems to stand a chance, at least, at it’s done by one Italy’s greatest comic minds in his twilight years. That’d be Antonio Focas Flavio Angelo Ducas Comneno De Curtis di Bisanzio Gagliardi, otherwise called Totò. Behold, a partial filmography: Fifa e Arena, Totò al Giro d’Italia, Totò Sceicco, Totò e la donne, Totò Tarzan, Totò terzo uomo, Totò a colori, Totò, Peppino e la malefemmina. Whoa.

One’s confidence in a Totò entry wanes when one realizes Mario Mattoli, the director who perpetrated Vale of Woe, was a frequent Totò collaborator. So this is likely at a similar level of wit and cinematic competence, and thus we’ll look no further into it. Still, once parodies start comin’ out, that surely means a genre is on its last legs, or in dire need of innovation. That latter approach would bever fly with the regimented Italian filmmakers who’d embraced the peplum, so rather let’s take Totò vs Maciste as a sign of impending doom. A rather early sigh, surprisingly, as the peplum would sputter on for another two listless years more. That just shows how stubborn genre practitioners are, even when they’re so quick to copy success when it happens. Would that I could call this parodic entry the end of the movement, but it’s but a blip in the overall swamp. We must press onwards, and watch the available Mark Forest Macistes which popped up in Totò’s wake.


RELATED POSTS
• The Silent Maciste Franchise (1914 - 1927)
• No. 1 Maciste in the Valley of the Kings (1960)
• No. 2 Maciste vs. the Headhunters (1960)
• No. 3 Maciste in the Land of the Cyclops (1961)
• No. 6 Maciste, the Strongest Man in the World (1961)
• No. 7 Maciste Against Hercules in the Vale of Woe (1961)
• No. 21 Maciste vs. the Mongols (1963)
• No. 22 Maciste in Genghis Khan's Hell (1964)
• No. 23 Maciste and the Queen of Samar (1964)
• No. 24 Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus (1964)

Seven Samurai, Nos. 4 - 8 (1979 - 1993)

Seven Samurai remakes pepper the recent past like discarded underpants after a major shindig. Let us consider the many random, obscure efforts I have lamentably been unable to find…

The third Seven Samurai remake provides examples many things I severely wanted out of the unimpressive second, Kill a Dragon: It is a non-American take on the story. Furthermore, it is a genuine wuxia effort. It is Liu he gian shou (1979), itself an incredibly minor part of the overall ‘70s kung fu craze. What little info I can dredge up suggests it involves seven masters with seven different styles (well naturally!) banding together to defeat a greater single master with a greater single style. No word on if there is a village in need of defense, and “a multitude of fighters with unusual styles” is common enough in kung fu cinema (see Five Deadly Venoms).

Then we move ahead one year, to the ‘80s [dad dum dum!] and reach Battle Beyond the Stars…


You have no idea how much it pisses me off that I cannot find a copy of this movie! This is the one I most wanted to see! Consider, it’s the sci-fi version of Seven Samurai, meaning there’s a healthy dollop of Star Wars influence, the highest budget (at the time) motion picture ever produced by filmmaking uber-legend Roger Corman. That’s the same Roger Corman who practically invented independent cinema in the post-monopoly days of Hollywood, whose cheapo exploitation flicks paved the path indirectly for directors such as George Romero, and who more is directly responsible for creating the careers of (among many others) Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, Joe Dante, Peter Bogdanovich, Curtis Hanson, Ron Howard, Jack Hill, etc. ad infinitum. The man whose no-budget productions include cult classics Piranha, Death Race 2000, Boxcar Bertha, Rock ‘N’ Roll High School, Galaxy of Terror, and about 500 other movies, including the recent trash that is Sharktopus! Damn I wanted to see his take on Seven Samurai!

I mean, we’re talking the movie which created James Cameron’s big break in film, doing special effects with almost zero money (a low budget, James Cameron?!), in service of a sci-fi pulp pastiche to rival Flash Gordon or Buckaroo Banzai. A mighty top drawer entertainment, by Corman standards, boasting a score by James “Aliens” Horner, a screenplay by John “Lone Star” Sayles.

The story is as purely Seven Samurai as possible…in space! Just replace “village” with “space planet,” “bandits” with “space mutants,” and “samurai” with “space mercenaries from beyond the moon.” Such a fantastical setting surely allows a playful approach to the set-in-stone scenario, as now every universal detail can be altered for maximum strangeness. So we have, apparently, a gruesome mishmash of robots, reptilians, alien clones, and a character actually called “Space Cowboy” (he’s a trucker)! And Robert Vaughn returns from The Magnificent Seven to play Gelt, a perfect updating of his old Lee character – an aging assassin looking to lie (Lee) low.

Reverence to its past doesn’t stop there. Battle Beyond the Stars christens its planet Akir, as in Akira Kurosawa. As a pulpy space opera, other names and concepts sound equally foreign: Shad, Sadodr, Malmori, Stellar Converter, Zed, Nell, Kalo, Tembo, Hephaestus, Nanelia, Planet Earth, Nestor, Mol, Cayman of the Lambda Zone, Saint-Exmin, Zymer, Quepeg. Sybil Danning’s in this, back when she was smokin’. John Saxon’s in it! George Peppard, the guy originally cast for Steve McQueen’s role in The Magnificent Seven, he’s in it!

Damn, I really wanted to see this movie!

Sigh. Moving on…


Okay, now this is getting frightening. The next, 1983’s The Seven Magnificent Gladiators, is a part of the early ‘80s’ peplum revival, along with the same year’s Hercules (with Lou Ferrigno), or ‘84’s Hercules 2 (heh?!), ‘83’s Ator, the Fighting Eagle, and the mightiest and earliest of this set, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian. This is the Second Wave of the Italian-styled sword-and-sandals genre, like those movies I’m taking a break from. Movies from the ‘60s like Seven Slaves Against the World and Seven Rebel Gladiators – and no, those aren’t official remakes of Seven Samurai, so we get to ignore ‘em.

The Seven Magnificent Gladiators is an Italian movie, as evidenced by how awkwardly exploitative that title is. Story-wise, it’s the old village-bandits-warriors situation. As in any of these remakes, it must distinguish itself through specifics, notably the new setting: some generic sword-and-sorcery Neverland. All evidence suggests this is well in keeping with those damned pepla, celebrating lunkheaded brawny idiocy over any of the swifter, cleverer battling shown by the Magnificent Seven – who are undoubtedly being picked up on here, and it seems one could argue many of these Seven Samurai remakes are in fact Magnificent Seven remakes. Oh, and Lou Ferrigno stars in this one too (as “Han”), for he really couldn’t extricate himself from this bizarre little Italian pseudo-movement.

Even given The Seven Magnificent Gladiators’ status as an Italian second-generation peplum from the ‘80s, even then it sounds horrible. Credit, if it so may be called, goes to the directors, Claudio Fragasso and Bruno Mattei. Mattei is the “real” director here, a feared figure even amongst Italian genre makers (and I love a lot of Italian genre fare), a man whose car accident-style cult mostly focuses upon travesties such as Zombis 3 and 4, which ignores other equally terrifying works such as SS Girls, SS Extermination Love Camp (see a theme?), Mondo Erotico, Violence in a Women’s Prison, Caligula and Messalina, Virus: Hell of the Living Dead, Scalps, Robowar, Strike Commando, Strike Commando 2, Shocking Dark (aka Terminator 2 – whaaat?!), Killing Striptease, Killing Striptease 2, The Jail: A Woman’s Hell…you know, nothing but the classiest of cinematic masterpieces.

Oh, let us not discount Claudio Fragasso, who is perhaps a far greater contributor to the wonderful realm of the terrible Z-movie, who bested (or worsted) Mattei’s claim as the “Ed Wood of Italian filmmaking” in a single, stunning bound….Fragasso wrote and directed Troll 2. Haven’t seen that beast yet? Go get drunk, stoned, and surrounded by friends and watch that NOW.

And Sybil Danning is in this one too!


It’s amazing, seemingly once a property has entered the realm of cheapo, exploitative genre fare, it cannot extricate itself. The next remake comes from 1990, and filmmaker Ciro H. Santiago – who is somehow not Italian, though his filmography would suggest otherwise. Rather, here’s another erstwhile director/producer of any and all potentially profitable niche fare. Movies to his credit include Pistolero, T.N.T. Jackson, Vampire Hookers, Caged Fury, Naked Vengeance, Silk, Future Hunters, Demon of Paradise, The Expendables (no, not that one), Silk 2, Caged Heat II: Stripped of Freedom (but somehow not Caged Heat), and this year’s upcoming (surely on DVD) Road Raiders. It’s clear I just love picking out the most sensational titles, and listing ‘em. I could do likewise for the things Santiago has merely produced, but I’ll spare ya.

Dune Warriors takes the Seven Samurai routine and applies it to a Mad Max/Road Warrior rip-off, when in 1990 those things were surely on the way out. Well, seeing as these post-apocalyptic desert epics are really just redressed westerns (as is Seven Samurai, let us not forget), the new details are solely cosmetic. Again, bandits are now mutants. Some dreaded swords-and-sorcery nonsense somehow remains, as the solution to this problem (apart from the standardized seven warriors) involves a magical sword, once held by none other than mighty Achilles – No, wait, I’m actually thinking of The Seven Magnificent Gladiators here.

Either rate, the casts continue to showcase only the best that genre fare can afford. Headlining Dune Warriors is the late David Carradine, American martial artist spanning a career from TV’s “Kung Fu” to QT’S Kill Bill (he’s Bill). This means we can again add a certain wuxia flavor to the mix, surely the sort of desperate gambit a late-period Mad Max wannabe would tout.

No more Sybil Danning, sadly. But Luke Askew’s in it, and he was in The Magnificent Seven Ride! That’s how far we’ve fallen from Battle’s Robert Vaughn.


Dikiy vostok, the last remake I didn’t bother to watch (because I couldn’t) is another international epic, though you’d never guess which nation…

Kazakhstan!

In researching this one, brainchild of Soviet director Rashid Nugmanov, there is absolutely no way to improve upon the plot summary found on IMDb. So here it is:

“The Solar Children, a group of dwarves who left the circus, are trying to start a settlement in the Kyrgyzstan wilderness just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but are harassed by a gang of bikers. With their meager savings, they hire a ragtag group of heroes to drive off the bikers.”

Midgets…er, dwarves? Mongolian biker gangs? Damn, here’s another one I’m pissed off I didn’t see!

…Hell, it sounds like an early Werner Herzog movie, specifically Even Dwarfs Started Small, with a bit of Kaspar Hauser, Fata Morgana and Aguirre for flavor. Apparently, all international distribution of Dikiy vostok (aka The Wild East) highlighted its status as a sheer oddity. And in the early years following the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., apparently this is how filmmakers lashed out against their overlords’ former stringent restrictions. The one other thing Dikiy vostok is apparently noted for follows that pattern. ‘Tis a quote, about the Soviet Union: “There is no sex in our country.” Hmm, today’s internet culture begs to differ (link not provided).

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That nearly wraps it up for Seven Samurai remakes. There is one more official remake, China Gate, which I will get to see. (There’s a little more to top off this tale, also to be seen tomorrow). In the meanwhile, I have intentionally neglected certain films which clearly use Seven Samurai and its ilk as inspiration, but are not direct enough to be counted as remakes. These are mostly comic efforts, as broad as ¡Three Amigos!, A Bug’s Life and Galaxy Quest. What’s interesting is how they all use the same comic conceit: The “warriors” are entertainers, mistaken for real heroes. This in itself would make for an interesting exploration, but that’s beyond this blog’s mission, so we’ll leave it be.

One final thought: In evidently every Seven Samurai updating, the bandits gain status as visible villains, with a leader to match wits with the head of the seven. Compare that to the unseen force of nature in Kurosawa’s version. Which approach is stronger? Draw your own conclusions.



RELATED POSTS:
• No. 1 Seven Samurai (1954)
• No. 2 The Magnificent Seven (1960)
• No. 3 Kill a Dragon (1967)
• No. 9 China Gate (1998)

Maciste, the Silent Franchise (1914 - 1927)

The greatest of Hercules’ competitors in the great Italian peplum parade, in popularity, profitability, prolificacy, was Maciste. Like Hercules, the Maciste character is a beloved Italian folk legend who originated in the days of darkest antiquity – 1914.

There are in fact two Maciste franchises in existence, and the ‘60s franchise which is our primary concern (as it eventually crosses over with the Herc) would be nothing without its predecessor. And unlike all the other musclemen, Maciste is a purely cinematic creation, hailing originally from the silent classic Cabiria.


The Italian-made Cabiria is the first sword-and-sandals film ever made, which isn’t saying a whole lot. Rather, let’s say it was – for a long time, at least – considered perhaps the first feature length film made! And not just any feature length film; 181 minutes! Furthermore, it’s not every film of which you could argue Griffith’s Intolerance is a rip-off of. (Or however that sentence parses out.)

Cabiria is also the first movie to feature Maciste. To parse out the character’s inspiration, maybe it’s best to let Wikipedia have a shot:

The name of Maciste ultimately comes from a sentence in Strabo's Geography (Book 8, Chapter 3, Section 21), in which he writes: ἐν δὲ τῷ μεταξὺ τό τε τοῦ Μακιστίου Ἡρακλέους ἱερόν ἐστι καὶ ὁ Ἀκίδων ποταμός … However, in the first volume of the Dizionario universale archeologico-artistico-technologico (1858) Macistius is given as one among several epithets of Hercules (Ercole). In the second volume of the same dictionary (1864) this name appears Italianized as Maciste, defined as uno del soprannomi d'Ercole.

What they said. “Macistean” was an Italian adjective for “Herculean,” meaning the English equivalent of the “Maciste” name is “Strongo McStrong Strong.” And therefore in original conception, Maciste is truly no different than Hercules – hell, rough Cabiria drafts called the character “Hercules!”


In watching Cabiria, the masterpiece of early director Giovanni Pastrone, one must block out all thoughts of the peplum aesthetic debate. For all its surface level Roman trappings, this ancient-set silent spectacle rather stands as a road sign in the ongoing evolution of early cinematic language. I shall try to spell this out, and set the stage.

First of all, it’s silent; the only noise is the rather insistent piano track, the sort of thing we normally associate with mustachioed villains tying virgins to train tracks. This means all the dialogue and plot stuff is mostly conveyed through title cards – wordy, wordy title cards, sure to delight any blogger’s heart. And assuming slowness of marginal literacy, these are on the screen for oh so very long. And overly descriptive too, in the translated prose of literary author Gabriele d’Annunzio, rendering the visuals somewhat redundant seeing as we’ve just been told what we’re about to see. It is a slow-paced film, by any modern standards. The acting is mostly of that grand silent tradition, with much arm gesticulation and all-around histrionics, as subtlety wasn’t much favored in the medium with its major technical limitations then.

Though Pastrone’s work sets out to correct many of the limitations with early film. He is one of the first directors, to my knowledge, to move away from the proscenium staging format which betrayed film’s early desire to be a variation on stage plays, in the way most video games today just wanna be movies. It’s ever so slightly closer to naturalism. Add to that a moving camera – and in the ‘10s (the 20th Century ‘10s, that is, not today), any camera movement was a major revolution in avante gardism! Though with Griffith’s aforementioned inspiration taken from Cabiria, it wouldn’t be long (two years) for Intolerance to up Pastrone at his own invention.

And of course there’s the lira-bragging spectacle of it all, which would inspire the early Cecil B. DeMille to do his 1923 Ten Commandments, which would inspire him to do his different 1956 Ten Commandments, which would lead to the peplum crazy, and the rediscovery of Maciste.

But Maciste isn’t even the focus of Cabiria; Cabiria is. How ‘bout that?! It’s all so much melodrama. And Cabiria (Lydia Quaranta) is merely a prop, a little girl ousted from her home by an exploding, Pompeii-esque volcano model, sold into Carthaginian slavery, thus serving as our window into a larger tale of the Second Punic War, of Carthage vs. Rome, of Hannibal vs…uh, was it Scipio? [Yes it was. – ed.] …Wait, since when do I have an editor?!

Early in cinema, earlier still in feature cinema, storytellers were still working out just how much incident to fill their movies with. Cabiria, following the patterns of a standard epic (as opposed to peplum), tries to cover just a bit more story, in true literary form, than movie audiences are ready to go along with. And every event cannot be glanced over, with any sense of narrative editing. Rather, every beat has to play out in full, regardless of overall importance to the tale, or emotional content, or anything. This is a fault of age, mostly, and of ambition. And made for one million 1914 lira, Cabiria is ridiculously ambitious.


Would you look at that thing? Look at the size of the people by it! And all the sets are like that, all constructed at a scale hardly ever seen done sans trickery. In a true “cast of thousands” model, Cabiria even ladles extras into ever corner of the shot, all the time, to populate this realm as something more than merely a mimed-out picture play. It’s an effort to thoroughly represent the ancient world, not merely pastiche it, even if the Carthage setting allows for lots of outdated “exoticism” which has no basis in any historical reality (again, see the ridiculous face monster building above).

Far from trying to ape the forms of the stage play, as so many lesser films of the era, Pastrone rather seems taken up with literature as his goal (a common movie ailment). Specifically, Cabiria has the whiff of historical fiction about in, in the Leo Tolstoy “War and Peace” sense, a sprawling epic with dozens of important named characters. (More correctly, the actual inspiration here is Emilio Salgari’s “Carthage in Flames” and Gustave Flaubert’s “Salammbo.”) Which works well enough in print, over 1,000 pages, but a 3 hour movie cannot present such a canvas and still hope for some emotional connection. Most movie watchers grow connections with specific heroes, little plots which inform the whole. Consider what Star Wars would be like if the whole of the Empire and galaxy was treated with equal degrees of attention, relegating Luke Skywalker to 1/20th of the tale. The wordless and purely symbolic Cabiria offers no real compass for us, despite all her ostensible main character status.

Then thank Moloch, or whichever pagan deity you prefer, for the presence of Bartolomeo Pagano’s Maciste! He and his master Fulvius Axilla (Umberto Mozzato) are the closest to the modern definition of main characters, even if they seem but minor figures in the vast and needlessly complex tale of warfare and political intrigue. Yes, they occupy that hypothetical “1/20th of the movie” Luke Skywalker role, but because their narrative is simple, we latch onto them.


Maciste in particular stands out, even without reference to his later proliferation of sequels. Casts of thousands’ll do that, making the lone distinct guy seem that much more distinct. Ignore the interchangeable masses in their Roman soldier outfits, Maciste’s (or Pagano’s) body type alone distinguishes him. In peplum terms, this is the unexpected genius of the muscleman, even for the reduced degree of shirtlessness on display here. You can see how Pagano became a movie star, not just for being somewhat ripped, but for being unique in appearance, lending audiences grounding in these otherwise overwhelming epics.

Maciste is Axilla’s slave, a North African portrayed by an Italian in full blackface. I dunno if it’s for a lack of actual African actors available, or rather a degree of racism on the filmmakers’ part (probably the latter, for reasons to appear later), but it’s a shame. Maciste is interesting in spite of this ethnic questionability.

For one thing, in Pagano’s performance we have an early example of the Douglas Fairbanks approach, the joys of the silent era stuntman risking his neck foolhardily on genuinely ginormous sets. Maciste and Axilla set off to rescue newly-enslaved Cabiria, who’s about to be sacrificed in a proto-Temple of Doom set piece. Though the movie as a whole has a rather stale desire to make Art, such a scenario (an ultimately tiny portion of the film) has rather the tone of the action adventure. Though it’s perhaps lesser in aim, this is the most successful, the most cinematic attribute of Cabiria.

That’s necessary, because so much of the film’s other 85% or so over-relies upon clumsy narrative devices such as this:


I don’t decry the title card as a technique, but it best serves the visuals, rather than the other way around. For as astounding as the visuals regularly are in Cabiria (the whole of the film is kinetic, in 1914 terms), we’d be lost without these complex reiterations of the cast, their importance, etc. etc. etc. There’s no single character through line, rather forcing the audience to settle upon the one obvious story they can find – Maciste & Co.

Regarding Cabiria in terms of the later, pulpier sword-and-sandals films (which does a great disservice to its greater cinematic legacy), one finds scant, proto examples of the sort of hijinks musclemen would get up to in the ‘60s. Maciste is strong, but not ridiculously so. Indeed, compared to the hyper-exaggerated feats of superhumanism the cinematic Hercules regularly dabbles in, Maciste is – surprise, surprise – realistic, mortal, believable.


Following the initial rescue of Cabiria, the plot bifurcates wildly, and it becomes increasingly difficult to follow our preferred story of Maciste and Axilla. The possibility for a simple, streamlined adventure is there…were it not for the filmmakers’ enthusiasm for suddenly chronicling every facet of this war in great detail. That means scenes whose purpose is barely clear, celebrating the vampy royals, or depicting Hannibal crossing the Alps. In the latter case, it is something to actually see the elephants and everything, done legit. The spectacle of these old films, Cabiria and more so Intolerance (and the later DeMilles, et al), is always mightily impressive, even when it’s difficult to ascribe much concern to the action on screen.

So eventually Maciste is separated from his beloved slave-driving master, and given over to an evil slave driver. He is chained to a millstone, taunted, mocked, ridiculed…This is the stage where, in a standard Hercules endeavor, he’d break those chains in an instant (and with inestimable ease, I might add). Not so this Maciste – or at any rate, the old Maciste, as surely even his silent series would exaggerate his strength. No, Maciste cannot break his chains, and spends years bound to them. That’s while all manner of unrelated plot, for a full 45 minutes, spiels along. It’s all spectacular yet uninvolving, with the complexity of a Gore Vidal novel, and I don’t wanna try recounting it.

For we’re here for Maciste, truly, even though that wasn’t the intent in 1914. And at long last, having survived fort sieges and sea battles and any manner of other spectacle, Axilla returns to Carthage, where Maciste awaits in chains. And now, like 2 hours in, Maciste can perform the great feat of strength that would’ve graced the first 10 minutes of a later such movie. He breaks his chains!


There are, scattered about, a few more examples of Maciste’s nascent super-strength, deployed most sparingly only when Pastrone feels the need to lighten up his dour epic. For instance, Maciste bends prison bars, he hurls a big stone, he picks up another man. Again, such feats would combine together into one of the more underwhelming 5 minutes of any ‘60s peplum, but such tropes gotta start someplace.

One of the (unexpected) long term impacts of Cabiria was the popularity of the Maciste character. This is on account of his action hero status, of his escapist moments of derring-do. It has nothing to do with his artificially swarthy skin tone. Though at the time of filming, that is likely to be the element of greatest importance, and here we examine some of the more…controversial elements of Cabiria.

Its makers were fascists, and racists. Racist, fascist Maciste! For all Cabiria’s deniability, what with its ancient Roman/Carthaginian setting, there is the sense that it’s really a response to the recent Italo-Turkish war – which Italy won. This resulted in Italy specifically conquering parts of North Africa, parts that Maciste is supposed to hail from. So his characteristics, his amazing strength and dark skin, are all just a reflection of how Italy surely considered Africa at the time. And these traits, for as celebrated as the later pepla would make them (when applied to good, white-skinned he-men), weren’t meant as positives.


Consider the distinction drawn between Rome and Carthage. Rome, which I’ve hardly addressed, is populated by the same clean, white, antiseptic columns and togas as in the later films. Carthage, as I did mention, is exotic to a ridiculous extent, much like the Persians in Snyder’s 300. And it’s an exoticism founded upon nothing except the notion of an Other, something to be held in contrast to the moral and pure Romans. For surely Carthage is the baddie in this piece, as Maciste’s goodness comes not of his background, but of his docility to his mighty Roman master.

In the period immediately following WWI, invoking Rome was not an innocent practice in Italy. Rather, there were powerful political connotations, thus placing Cabiria in something of the same category as aesthetically-pleasing yet philosophically-bankrupt efforts such as The Birth of a Nation (a contemporary) and Triumph of the Will (an ideological cousin). Writer Gabriele d’Annunzio in particular is a part of the continuum which led to Mussolini, whose entire reign was dominated by a return to Roman-style art and architecture. And rather than simply inspiring the aesthetic choices of the future dictator, Cabiria is complicit in the actual arguments of Italo-Fascism, what with its tale of civilization vs. the hordes.

Cabiria’s audiences couldn’t care less about its ties to Mussolini, for that wouldn’t mean the same thing in 1914. They were more concerned with the exciting, half-naked “black” man, same as even a modern viewer would be. Quite unplanned by Pastroni, in this character was the promise of a line of moviemaking yet unheard of: a character-centric franchise.

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Upon making their Maciste-mongering follow-up (simply titled Maciste, or Marvelous Maciste), we have not only a ridiculously early franchise, but a ridiculously early sequel. Such things just weren’t a major part of cinema yet, and isn’t it appropriate that sequels only came about at popular audience insistence? That sounds about right. Tying Maciste back to The Birth of a Nation yet again, we even discover that 1915’s Maciste predates Fall of a Nation, traditionally considered the first sequel!

Now, movie serials existed even prior to Maciste, as short subjects were more common in those days (this being when the notion of a feature length flick was itself unique). So we see at least one franchise which arguably predates Maciste – the Fantômas silent serials which started in 1913 – yet this is a step beyond. (Other early franchises, still beaten by Maciste: The Seven Deadly Sins, Boston Blackie, and…that is it for the ‘10s.)

Bartolomeo Pagano returns as Maciste, a role he would inhabit for the entirety of the 27-film silent franchise. The film, far from being a star-reaching epic like Cabiria, is much more in tune with the needs of Maciste. So it drops from 181 minutes, now down to 67. That’s more like it! And any handwringing melodramatics have given way to simple adventuring.

Now…the notion of a cinematic sequel must’ve been a truly bizarre notion in the 1910s, to look at the premise of Maciste. For even while he prospered in ancient Carthage, audiences know Maciste is a fictional character! Seriously?! You can’t do a sequel because you’re aware of the original’s fictionality? I can’t even imagine a world where the notion of a “sequel” is that alien.

But they found a solution! In Maciste, a little girl Josephine (Arline Costello – only film) on the run from the standardly villainous Duke Alexis (Robert Ormand – only film) hides out in a movie theater. Here she sees Cabiria, Part One, and decides Maciste could help her! Now that they’ve addressed Maciste’s falseness, and possibly made the very first meta movie, all logic can sail off to Sicily. The girl writes to Maciste, who apparently exists in the world of movie theaters even as he’s a fictional North African from before Christ.

Oh well, Maciste’s in play. The rest, presumably (as most movies from nearly a century ago are lost), simply focuses upon Maciste’s strongman exploits, assorted serial-style escapes and perils. And thus did the proto peplum come into being.


Maciste proved that the character could carry his own story, without recourse to overt spectacle or Griffith-lite cinematic evolution. This was an enormous discovery, and soon production on Maciste sequels started in earnest. Soon the business model was apparent: Provide the character, provide Pagano, but otherwise do whatever you please. Far from the astounding analness about the impossibility of sequels, these later Macistes ran for over a decade on the notion that continuity didn’t matter whatsoever. Credit the producers for recognizing how to maximize profitability on an efficient assembly line, at the sacrifice of art. The result of this, far from Maciste remaining a mere slave around 200 B.C., is that he became an Italian folk hero of sorts, entirely due to the films!

The rest of the series is as follows:

3. Maciste the Ranger (1916)
4. Maciste The Warrior (1916)
5. Maciste the Athlete (1917)
6. Maciste the Clairvoyant (1917)
7. Maciste the Detective (1917)
8. Maciste the Tourist (1917)
9. Maciste the Sleepwalker (1918)
10. Maciste's Revenge (1919)
11. Maciste's Will (1919)
12. Maciste's Journey (1919)
13. Maciste the First (1919)
14. Maciste vs. Death (1919)
15. Maciste in Love (1919)
16. Maciste on Vacation (1920)
17. Maciste, Rescued from the Waters (1920)
18. Maciste and the Silver King's Daughter (1922)
19. Maciste and the Japanese (1922)
20. Maciste vs. Maciste (1923)
21. Maciste and the Chinese Trunk (1923)
22. Maciste's American Nephew (1924)
23. Maciste the Emperor (1924)
24. Maciste vs. the Sheik (1925)
25. Maciste in Hell (1926)
26. Maciste in the Lions' Den (1926)
27. The Giant From the Dolomite (1927)


I could spend some time pontificating the titles alone, but what’s the point? Rather, reliable-enough online resources say much that would otherwise be mere conjecture, that the films took on a tremendous degree of formula in order to survive, and that this formula even started to resemble the later pepla to a grand degree. To repeat what I’ve laid out for the ‘60s films, but at last in one place, that amounts to:

- A damsel in distress, and a one-time love interest
- One good ruler, and the evil ruler who wishes to usurp his kingdom
- A second female lead, a femme fatale, intent upon vile seduction
- A random, contextless dancing scene
- And of course Maciste himself

Within that framework, anything was possible, to a far greater extent than the later pepla, which mostly limit themselves to Greco-Roman antiquity. Without concern for inter-entry continuity to a remarkably progressive extent, these Maciste movies could also occur in Mongolia, Peru, Egypt, the ancient Olympics, World War One, even the afterlife!

As for Cabiria, it aimed for historical realism, despite its wilder touches. That fidelity waned with time, and the Macistes took on an ever greater love for the fantastical. It is unclear just how devoted it was to this angle, which emerges fully-formed in 1958’s Hercules. But towards the end, there was some movement in this direction. Indeed, it seems one can find nearly all of the peplum elements in this first generation precursor, only in different proportions.


RELATED POSTS
• No. 1 Maciste in the Valley of the Kings (1960)
• No. 2 Maciste vs. the Headhunters (1960)
• No. 3 Maciste in the Land of the Cyclops (1961)
• No. 6 Maciste, the Strongest Man in the World (1961)
• No. 7 Maciste Against Hercules in the Vale of Woe (1961)
• Nos. 8 - 20 (1962 - 1964)
• No. 21 Maciste vs. the Mongols (1963)
• No. 22 Maciste in Genghis Khan's Hell (1964)
• No. 23 Maciste and the Queen of Samar (1964)
• No. 24 Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus (1964)