What exactly is "peplum"?
Peplum (plural: pepla) is a distinct film genre. The common English language term is "'sword & sandal film"', while in German the genre is known as "Sandalenfilm" or "Römer Film". The word "peplum" is the name of a diminutive skirt usually worn by men in these films.
It all began with the film THE LABOURS OF HERCULES (or simply HERCULES) in 1957. By then the Italian had produced costumers in the Hollywood Bible epos tradition for years. And in fact those Hollywood Bible films were ripping off even older Italian costume adventures. But with HERCULES director Pietro Francisci and US distributor Joseph E.Levine hit just the right moment. When the film reached the American theatres in 1959 the moviegoers, hungry for entertainment of the escapistic kind, went crazy with the story of a handsome demigod of ancient Greece. People demanded more - and plenty of it. So Francisci hurried young bodybuilder Steve Reeves back in the role as the son of Jupiter and directed a sequel, HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959), which became even more popular. And that was the cue for the Italian movie industry. During the next 5 years close to 200 peplum titles were released, films starring professional bodybuilders in skirts and little else, manly flexing their muscles, courting exotic beauties and fighting grotesque stop-animation monsters and 'giants' i.e. guys in rubbersuits. While these films enjoyed considerable popularity in Europe and elsewhere, the major export market for the producers was America. The Americans just loved the sword & sandal adventures, even though what they actually got to see most often were completely mangled and altered versions of the original films. Take the case of Maciste, for example, a heroic character in Italian film of old. Fearing that it would be considered too damn foreign his name was changed by American distributors to the more generic Atlas, Goliath or Samson (Rather confusingly there are films genuinly starring these loincoated gentlemen as well.) Or the infamous SONS OF HERCULES concept. Some smart people grabbed a handful of completely unrelated pepla, redubbed the whole thing, wrote a catchy themesong, a prologue narrative and voila! A highly succesful series was born, enjoying the occacional rerun on TV to the day. When ca.1965 the goldrush was over, the musclemen retired and the Italian filmindustry invented a new, lucrative genre: the spaghetti western. But that's another story.

Riiight, but how can I tell if I'm watching a peplum?
Here are some clues.
1. It's Italian. There are borderline cases, THE LAST DAYS OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH was produced in Italy, but the director, Robert Aldrich, was an American.
2. It was produced within the period 1957 to 1965. Some earlier films like THEODORA or ULYSSES (both 1954) can be considered proto-peplum though. The Italians continued to produce costume adventure films well into the seventies, but these are not pepla. And the silly barbarian/sword & sorcery films of the eighties aren't either, although they often get mixed up with genuine pepla in video catalogues and reference books.
3. The story takes place in ancient times, between 1400 B.C. and 1100 A.C. roughly. Most pepla deal with incidents in various regions of the Western Roman Empire, often Rome herself, occacionally it's Greece or Egypt and in rare cases a rather exotic location such as the realm of the Incas, Norway, Atlantis - or even the Underworld. The actual story takes inspiration from historical events or popular legend, sometimes both. The fall of Troy, destruction of Pompeii, labours of Hercules, journeys of Ulysses, it's all wowen into each other, creating a fairytale world of yesterday when magic was real and the gods walked among us. I think Homer would have approved. Of course Homer probably never existed...
4. The name of the hero is always Hercules. Unless it's Maciste. Or Samson, Atlas, Goliath, Colossus, Ursus or Ulysses. (Or, if it's a viking peplum, Erik or Harald.) Sometimes the hero is a demigod, sometimes he is a mortal, if extraordinary man. He always wins. No, that's not true, not even Steve Reeves can save all the citizens of Pompeii, but he can save a couple of them, including of course his loved ones. So at least he never entirely fails.
5. Although Steve Reeves and Reg Park are the true champions of peplum they were far from the most active in the business, so you're more likely to have Kirk Morris or Mark Forest, decent enough dudes, but quite mediocre as peplum heroes go, in your film. Occacionally you'll have a post-Tarzan Gordon Scott or Gordon Mitchell who with his rugged face and imposing figure often was cast as villian. Cameron Mitchell will inevitably turn up at a point as Roman general or Norse viking king.

What makes peplum so enjoyable?
Sure peplum is acquired taste. It can be very dull, especially when it insists on being taken seriously. It is in fact often unintentionally cheesy because of limited budget, poor scripting and/or amateur acting. However, like spaghetti westerns and Japanese samurai films (genres also close to my heart) peplum is grand escapism. There are few better ways to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon than watching Hercules and friends save the oppressed masses from tyrants and dragons. You don't have to do any thinking, just lean back and let yourself be entertained, with a thermo of coffee and some snacks within comfortable reach. In fact it would be wise not to think too hard about such petty details as historical facts, watching peplum is not the best way to learn history. On the other hand if you know your classics the creative arrangements of the old stories and myths add to the fun.

Who are the big stars?
First and foremost: Steve Reeves and Reg Park, the twin titans of peplum. Reeves was a young bodybuilder and aspiring actor who just happened to start the whole thing and thus most unexpectly became a world hit. He starred in several pepla as well as various other costume adventure films, playing everything from Ali Baba to a Tolstoyian Russian freedom fighter - his last acting part was in a western. Reeves, it must be said, had a fairly limited acting style, but plenty of charisma and good looks - and most important, a very likeable personality. Reg Park was another bodybuilder of remarkable physique, but unlike Reeves also a succesful businessman, who jumped the peplum wagon to earn a little extra, not to realize a dream of fame. He starred in only five films, displaying an acting style even more wooden than that of Reeves. Park however had the incredible luck of being cast for the greatest costume adventure film of all time, HERCULES IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1961) and the almost on pair HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN (1963).
Then there's the reliable Gordon Scott, the enthusiastic Cameron Mitchell (a personal favorite!), the imposing Gordon Mitchell, the tireless workmen Mark Forest and Kirk Morris, hell, there's even Dan Vadis - I can't stand the fellow, but there he is, all yours.

And who are the important directors?.
Well, honours must go to Pietro Francisci for starting the craze, but the real grandmaster director of peplum is the immortal Mario Bava who incidently worked with cameras and special effects on Francisci's two Hercules films. Bava, fresh from his sensational directional debut THE MASK OF SATAN (1960), created with HERCULES IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, starring Reg Park and Christopher Lee, a nightmarish vision of Hell that sets it apart from all other pepla, although Riccardo Freda later came close with MACISTE IN HELL (1962). His other works in the genre, the trio of viking pepla ERIK THE CONQUEROR (1960), LAST OF THE VIKINGS (1960, co-director only) and KNIVES OF THE AVENGER (1966, a belated return to the peplum or a spaghetti western, you decide), are impressive too.
Who else? Riccardo Freda, obviously, director of numerous Maciste films. Giorgio Ferroni made some excellent pepla. Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Leone, the godfathers of spaghetti western. Cool dudes like Mario Caiano, Umberto Lenzi, Antonio Margheriti and Duccio Tessari. The sadly overlooked Ferdinando Baldi. The list is long...

Name some of your favorite films.
You just can't go wrong with these.
HERCULES IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1961)
HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN (1962)
MACISTE AGAINST THE VAMPIRE (1961)
THE TROJAN HORSE (1962)
MACISTE IN HELL (1962)
LAST OF THE VIKINGS (1960)
KNIVES OF THE AVENGER (1966)
ACHILLES (1962)
THE LOVES OF HERCULES (1960)

Where can I buy peplum?
First, since I don't own a DVD player, I'll not comment on releases to that media. Routinely re-edited, dubbed and given different titles and character names by distributors all over the world, it's difficult to track these films down on video in their original form. The situation is worst in the States. Apart from footage missing, most American video prints unfortunately are presented in pan&scan and because pepla were almost exclusively shot in scope format i.e. 2.35:1, they suffer badly from this maltreatment. On the other hand a considerable number of pepla were released to the American video market in the past and various grey market companies seem to have gained access to old theatrical prints, so at least it's possible to obtain quite a number of titles. However, for the good stuff, there's Europe, in particular Holland, Germany, Greece and the Scandinavian countries. (We're talking rare old rental tapes, you can forget about finding recent releases anywhere!) Holland is generally considered as the number one place when it comes to obcure films and this is true, to a degree. However, sometimes even Dutch video prints are cut or pan&scanned versions, or not in English (for example, I own a Dutch Robin Hood film by Umberto Lenzi in French and an Alan Steel peplum in Italian, the Dutch subtitles no help to me). Germany enjoyed a massive release of pepla, they come in beautiful big clamshell boxes, the prints are almost always letterboxed and look fantastic. Unfortuntaly they're also dubbed and often slightly abridged. I guess you can't have it all! Greece then, well, you can find everything in Greece if you search long enough. Problem with their tapes is the obligatory rotten condition of the prints, ranging from just passable to downright awful. You can find a lot of fine stuff in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, but because only few people collects peplum here relatively little is known of exactly what has been available. And because the tapes are so old, most released around 1980-85, there is a serious risk that films, not released anywhere else, are or will soon be lost for ever.

CALIGULA AND MESSALINA and POPPEA AND NERO lift scenes from bona fide pepla. Which?
I forwarded the question to Bill Connolly and here's his reply, originally published at SPAGHETTI CINEMA/MARTIAL ARTS MOVIE ASSOCIATES and reprinted with permission:

Where can I read more about peplum on the net?
It's not easy to find information on peplum. Searching for a specific title will most likely lead you to online video catalogues or databases. However, all is not lost. Below are links to websites I often visit myself. There might be more out there of course, so reports of other peplum related sites are most welcome.

www.gordonmitchell.net
The official Gordon Mitchell website, maintained by the great man himself! You can also mail Mitchell.

www.stevereeves.com
The official Steve Reeves website, with a brief filmography.

The Many Faces of Hercules at Brian's Drive-In Theater
The mother of all peplum websites containing biographic pages with extensive photo galleries of all the major actors (except Cameron Mitchell??). Also pages on Tarzan films, Hollywood glamour girls plus a myriad of links for those who still can't get enough.

The Grim Reaper's Ghastly Grotto
Excellent website run by Graham Rix, contains several reviews of peplum titles as well as other interesting movie genres.

Teleport City of the Future
Highly recommended website run by Keith Allison, dedicated to all sorts of cool films, music and books. Six peplum reviews: COLOSSUS AND THE HEADHUNTERS, CONQUERORS OF ATLANTIS, FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES, HERCULES VERSUS THE MONGOLS, HERCULES VERSUS THE MOONMEN, MEDUSA AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES plus a tribute to Steve Reeves, "Immense and Immortal". Check also his reviews on sword & sorcery, Italian crime, spaghetti western and more!

SPAGHETTI CINEMA-MARTIAL ARTS
This personal webpage run by William Connolly is dedicated to European western, costume adventures and Asian martial arts film. Updating his page on a weekly basis, with reader contests, info on magazine releases, genre films on tv and links, Bill is doing a great job keeping the interest in these genres alive among film fans.

Video Holocaust Video company run by and for private collectors. Reviews for several rare costume adventure films, including the early works of Umberto Lenzi!

Mario Bava Web Page
The ultimate website on the greatest Italian director of them all, Mario Bava, run by Troy Howarth. In-depth reviews of HERCULES IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, ERIK THE CONQUEROR, KNIVES OF THE AVENGER and Bava's other films as director, of course.

HERMENAUT: Atlas Against the Czar
I stumbled across this website that appears to be a discussion board for intellectuals. The review of ATLAS AGAINST THE CZAR by Chris Fujiwara offers some interesting thoughts on the decline of peplum.

All text © Henrik Larsen 2001. Last updated 10-04-2001. Scandinavian readers may be interested in seeking out the Danish filmzine ULTIMO MONDO FRANKO (10/00) for my essay "Peplum - en introduktion" in which I review every single Danish peplum release available to me at the time. I am also a regular contributor to the Danish filmzine ABSURD.

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