Marathon Man

The film crew is back with another wacky film to be commentated. This time it's Mario Bava's sword and sandal epic Giant of Marathon (La Bataille de Marathon). It's packed full of muscley men with bare oiled chests, falling horses, and 2 women (total, for the whole film). The art director or someone decided to put a statue of a naked man in virtually every shot, usually with its dangling manparts juxtaposed with someone's face.

The film stars Steve Reeves as Phillipides and the milieu is the battle of Marathon. There are good guys and bad guys, and I actually didn't pay attention to any of that. It's actually not that bad a movie, as Hercules movies go. Bava has a nice way with dramatic lighting, and the battle scenes are pretty well done (brutal on the stunt horses, though). I understand that he actually has a cult following for his sexy horror films (of course, so does Ed Wood).

Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett crack wise through the whole thing, getting a little saltier than their cable tv show was (I think these are straight to DVD). There is a great short, with commentary by one of the extras - don't miss it (you'll be glad you did).

And now we've watched all 4 of the Film Crew series available to date. I strongly recommend that everyone call their local cable station and demand that they pick up this series, and pay the Film Crew to make many new episodes. That always works out - look what happened to Star Trek!