The Giant of Marathon (1959)

Directors: Jacques Tourneur and Bruno Vailati
Writers: Ennio de Concini, Augusto Frassinetti and Bruno Vailati, from an idea by Alberto Barsanti and Raffaello Pacini
Stars: Steve Reeves, Mylene Demongeot, Sergio Fantoni, Alberto Lupo, Ivo Garrani, Philippe Hersent and Daniela Rocca

Index: Centennials.

This is a perfect afternoon movie, a blend of historical accuracy and mythic hokum; divine cinematography and flimsy props; and a cast from many homelands all dubbed into Italian (except, I presume, for the Italians).

I have a fondness for peplum or sword and sandal flicks, the primarily Italian response to Hollywood’s big budget historical epics of mid last century. This is a more grounded example of the genre, though there’s as much made up out of whole cloth as has roots in history.

The setting, around the Battle of Marathon, is real, taking place in 490 BC as the Persians, under King Darius I, aimed to conquer Greece. Many of the characters are real on both sides: Darius and Hippias, exiled dictator of Athens, on one; Miltiades, Callimachus and Phillipides on the other, even if the latter’s heroics have been wildly mythologised.

And that’s where this film comes in, because it tells the mythological version far more than the real one, adding a fictional romance on top of that just for fun. This Phillipides even wins the Olympic Games while the opening credits roll. He’s a hero before anyone even speaks.

He also looks like one, being played by Steve Reeves, our centenarian. He was a professional bodybuilder in the forties, so was comfortable in skimpy outfits that showed off his muscles.

After receiving his laurel wreath, Phillipides joins the Sacred Guard, to which all Athenians trust their freedom. Initially, that just means a good opportunity to train and learn from the best, like Miltiades, who’s not unlike him but a lot older and more experienced. Eventually, it means defending Athens against invaders.

During the carefree former times, he meets a lovely young lady in the fields playing a ball game in a wickedly short skirt. She keeps her name to herself, but her friend lets him know that they’ll be dancing at the Temple of Ceres.

We know that she’s Andromeda, daughter of Croesus and promised to Theocritus, already clearly set up as the villain. A leading man this heroic and a leading lady this stunning must end up together, so don’t be surprised when it happens. Oh, and the battle is won by Athens but don’t call spoiler on that; you’ve had two and a half millennia to notice!

Andromeda is Mylène Demongeot, a French actress who I’ve seen before in Bonjour Tristesse and Doctor in Distress, the former American and the latter British. However, this is where I will firmly register her in my brain, because she is utterly enticing, somehow able to be both the girl next door and a priceless marble statue. It isn’t a challenging role for her, half sex object and half damsel in distress, but she’s perfect as both. Serious dramatic roles would come later.

Similarly, Reeves does everything needed in effortless style, though what’s really needed is for him to look good and look strong, whether physically or morally, and to be a credible lead romantically. Acting would merely be a bonus.

While we’re watching Andromeda, we ought to be watching her fiancé, Theocritus, who has serious plans to betray Athens and restore the tyrant Hippias to power. Initially, this is secret but, by the finalé, he gives up all pretense and leads the Persians into the Athenian harbour. Sergio Fantoni is a suitably scheming villain.

To keep Phillipides away from his betrothed—he’s already seen them in one kiss—he tasks the exotic Karis to seduce him with her angled eyebrows, rich foods and tasty entertainment. Maybe it might work too, if it wasn’t written exactly like Lili von Schtupp and Black Bart in Blazing Saddles, Theocritus slapping her for her failure just as Hedley Lamarr slapped Lili.

Eventually this all gives way to the Battle of Marathon and Phillipides’s legendary run back to Athens, here a warning rather than news of victory but the same run we remember today in the race we call the marathon, even though he never actually ran it. Ironically, he ran a far longer race, the hundred and fifty miles from Athens to Sparta to seek help, then back again. I can’t imagine that in our Olympics though.

Maybe that’s why he can turn from his run to literally dive right into underwater scenes to make Piraeus harbour a trap for the Persian fleet. The resulting battle, often underwater as well, is far more credible than anything above water, where Mario Bava’s cinematography is always far superior to what he was shooting.

You can surely write the rest, right down to Andromeda being tied to the bow of a Persian ship, convenient but welcome decoration for the boss battle of Phillipides and Theocritus.

This is all grand archetypal and thoroughly convenient action adventure, so Reeves was at home immediately. He started acting while he was still bodybuilding, but good roles weren’t apparent. He lost Samson and Delilah to Victor Mature and was uncredited in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, so his first credit came in the Ed Wood feature Jail Bait and his second in a musical.

However, that musical was Athena, with ties to Greek mythology, and he was a bodybuilder winning Mr. Universe (which he had done in 1950). Meanwhile director Pietro Francisci was struggling to find a believable Hercules but his daughter had seen Athena, so off went Reeves to Italy to make history with, well, history.

He made two Hercules films, Hercules in 1958 and Hercules Unchained a year later. These were cheaply made but very popular and suddenly Reeves had a new career, playing a succession of strong heroes of many nationalities who all did much while wearing little.

In The White Warrior, he played an Avar rebel leader fighting the Russians; in Goliath and the Barbarians (a film without a Goliath), a villager fighting barbarian invaders; in The Last Days of Pompeii, a centurion returning home. By 1960, he was the top box office draw in twenty-five different countries.

He was The Thief of Bagdad in the 1961 take on that story; Romulus, co-founder of Rome, in Duel of the Titans; and the son of Spartacus in The Slave. He played Aeneas in The Trojan Horse and The Avenger; and Sandokan, pirate prince of Emilio Salgari’s novels, in Sandokan the Great and Pirates of Malaysia.

His final film, in 1968, was anomalous, being a spaghetti western that he wrote himself, A Long Ride from Hell. He said it gave him an ulcer and retired to ranch in Oregon and California. He raised horses and promoted bodybuilding without drugs until his death in 2000.