The Last Days of Pompeii (1959 film)
The Last Days of Pompeii is a 1959 Eastmancolor sword and sandal action film starring Steve Reeves, Christine Kaufmann, and Fernando Rey and directed by Mario Bonnard and Sergio Leone. Bonnard, the original director, fell ill on the first day of shooting, so Leone and the scriptwriters finished the film.
Theatrical release poster
Sword-and-sandal, also known as peplum, is a subgenre of largely Italian-made historical, mythological, or biblical epics mostly set in the Greco-Roman antiquity or the Middle Ages. These films attempted to emulate the big-budget Hollywood historical epics of the time, such as Samson and Delilah (1949), Quo Vadis (1951), The Robe (1953), The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur (1959), Spartacus (1960), and Cleopatra (1963). These films dominated the Italian film industry from 1958 to 1965, eventually being replaced in 1965 by spaghetti Western and Eurospy films.
This poster for Goliath and the Barbarians (1959) by Carlo Campogalliani illustrates many people's expectations from films of this genre.
Kirk Douglas and Silvana Mangano in a pause during the shootings of Ulysses (1954) by Mario Camerini
Duel of the Titans (1961) by Sergio Corbucci
My Son, the Hero (1962) by Duccio Tessari