The Slave is a 1962 Italian peplum film directed by Sergio Corbucci and starring Steve Reeves and Gianna Maria Canale. It is an unofficial sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 1960 film Spartacus, as it includes a mention of the character Varinia, who was specifically created for the novel template for that film. The running time was 100 minutes.
The Slave (1962 film)
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