Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28259 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-10-12
• Formats: NTSC, Widescreen
• Number of discs: 1000
• Running time: 174 minutes

Customer Reviews

Peplum fans won't want to miss this!
Most people reading this are likely to have a pretty good knowledge of peplum films, so there's no need for any rehash of the sword-and-sandal movie genre history. The two films featured on this disc (two-sided single disc) are among the best (and rarest) of the genre.

As a kid, I enjoyed these types of movies almost as much as horror and sci-fi, and like many, was captivated by Steve Reeves `Hercules' and `Hercules Unchained', which really kicked the peplum craze in gear. Reeves was hugely popular, and released five films in 1959 alone. These films include HERCULES UNCHAINED, THE GIANT OF MARATHON, THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, THE WHITE WARRIOR and one of the films on this set, GOLIATH AND THE BARBARIANS. To me, this and fantasy/adventure THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD were his best. `GOLIATH' is darker and more violent than Reeves' other films, and is helped by having an uncharacteristically strong female lead in the exotic Cuban beauty Chelo Alonso. Supporting cast include Bruce (KING KONG) Cabot and the weird looking servant of Barbara Steele from Mario Bava's BLACK SUNDAY.

As fans will know, this is a revenge tale, where Reeves vows to exact justice from the barbarians who raped his village and killed his father. Wearing a weird fright mask and a long leather glove with bear claws (he rips the neck out of his first two victims), and swinging a 50lb. rock in a rope sling, he wrecks havoc on bands of barbarians. He gets captured, which leads to one of the great scenes of the sword-and-sandal genre: Reeves tied to several horses that are to tear him apart. He is able to rein them all in, muscles bulging. It's truly an iconic scene. The rest of the film is exciting and highly entertaining. The English dubbing is better than normally seen in these films (as is the cases with the second feature). The credits are in Italian.

This film, and virtually all of the sword-and-sandal movies, was filmed in widescreen, yet most of the relatively few such films that are available on DVD are panned-and-scanned, and typically are of poor image quality. Not in this case. It (as is the case with GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES) is presented in the very widescreen `TotalScope'. The aspect ratio is not given, but it seems even wider than CinemaScope's 2.35:1. The top and bottom lines take up about half the viewing area (on my 40" widescreen HD set). It seems more like 2.75:1. The color and overall image quality is the best I've seen among all of these films I have in my library, possibly excepting HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD. It looks great, and the mono audio is clear and strong.

The second movie is the very rare second peplum-type film made by Gordon Scott (the first being DUEL OF THE TITANS aka ROMULUS AND REMUS with pal Reeves). This movie is more of an action/fantasy movie than BARBARIANS. In this, Goliath's village is pillaged (the sacking of the village in this film was a bit more gory than in BARBARIANS), his beloved kidnapped along with all the village's fair damsels by a group of marauders doing the bidding of the evil, blood-drinking Kobrak. They throw the old or `useless' women overboard to the sharks, and drain the blood of the fair damsels for Kobrak. Goliath naturally goes to rescue his woman and kill Kobrak. Along the way, he throws lots of heavy things at soldiers, encounters the Blue Men (good guys), robots that `run on blood' (bad guys) and ends up having to fight himself when Kobrak takes on the appearance of Goliath. While I did find the film entertaining, it wasn't as much so as BARBARIANS. I also think there may be some scenes (or at least one) edited out; one early scene has Goliath jumping into the ocean to save a boy from a monster (looking like a giant sea horse); Goliath faces the beast, then the next scene is the boy recovering on the beach and Goliath coming ashore, triumphant. No fight scene.

While the film is in widescreen TotalScope, it appears slightly less wide than BARBARIANS, the black lines taking perhaps 45% of the total viewing area. The dubbing is pretty good, matching the lip movements fairly well (I wonder why the American actors' own voices were never used in the dubbing?). The image quality is not as good as BARBARIANS, but is pretty good overall. There are some scenes showing splices and scratches, and some are a bit washed out, but in general the colors were good, with correct flesh tones.

The movies are in region 0, NTSC (North American) output, and should play fine in any DVD player. This double feature is on the Wild West label, which apparently specializes in spaghetti westerns. They are to be commended for offering these great peplums in the kind of condition that they deserve. Any fan of sword-and-sandal films had best grab this while they can.

two sides of differing quality
Steve Reeves has never looked better in this very good print of Goliath. As the other reviewer said the Totalscope bars are the only distraction. After a few minutes one tends to be forgiving as the clarity of this print is probably the best I've seen in quite a long time. The audio is good and basically the story is a departure from the regular Reeves forte but never the less quite entertaining.
Now Gordon Scott doesn't have it quite so well as Reeves. The Goliath and The vampires isn't terrible but certainly not of the same quality print wise. Its a bit faded at parts but no major jumps or horrible dust specks show up. It takes up more of the screen than G & B does and audio wise is quite acceptable.
The one to get this for is Goliath and The Barbarians as Chelo Alonso is the female yang to Steve Reeves ying. She's a worthy female partner and quite a good dancer in the obligatory dance scenes in this movie. You'll wish Hercules would look this good. Except for the totalscope this print matches in part's the look of a brand new movie. WELL DONE !!!! It's not a waste of money as the $19.95 Hercules offered elsewhere on Amazon is, check it out if your a Reeves fan and hope Gordon Scott has a more vibrant print in a future release ;)

Great combo of mixed quality.
Wild East continues to please the collector with well produced independent dvds. The packaging is tops as is the menus. The video quality of these two movies varies a lot. "Goliath and the Barbarians" looks very nice with nice audio, the video is somewhat washed out but overall very good. "Goliath and the Vampires" however is grainy and looks like a cam copy in spots. The audio is fine. Do not expect a vault master copy. I bought this set for this movie and was NOT pleasd with the quality. I have never seen a good copy of this film anywhere. It seems the AIP source is pretty crappy. I do NOT blame Wild East for this quality problem. Both are wide screen presentations and I am sure the best that Wild East could produce. Overall, the set is a welcome addition for any collector. One day, the originals in Italian with subs may appear, until then enjoy these. As with the previous reviewer I agree that the colors are very nice, I DO NOT understand how his HD TV made these look better. These are nowhere as nice as the "Hercules and the Haunted World" dvd from Image Entertainment. With respect to the comments, his HD TV must have a magic button because on regular or HD TV these are not that good looking.