The Giant of Marathon (1959)

Sadly Over-hyped

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Unlike most other European sword and sandal movies of this period, "The Giant of Marathon" was picked up for North American distribution by a major Hollywood studio (Metro Goldwyn Mayer). My guess is that MGM was trying to cash in on the box office success that independent studio Embassy Pictures has with "Hercules", another sword and sandal movie with the same actor (Steve Reeves). That's the only reason why I can think of, because honestly I can't see any other selling points that the movie has. Even by standards of the era, the movie is really dull for the most part; for one thing, there is almost no action in the first half of the movie. While the second half does have some battlefield action, it's not particularly well choreographed or directed; it's not that much more exciting than what happened in the first half of the movie. Most of the movie is instead talk talk talk, none it it really engaging or interesting. I'm sure audiences back then were really bored by this movie. So it's no wonder that nobody was apparently interested in renewing the copyright for the movie, since it's now in the public domain and freely available to bore a new generation of moviegoers.

This film combines some events from history, mythology and tradition in an interesting story. It's rather loosely connected and far from anything great. But it covers something of the forerunner of the Olympics, the historical Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, and some traditional characters. Steve Reeves plays the lead. The former Mr. America and Mr. Universe got to show a little of his physique and prowess in this film, winning the Greek games early in the film. This is one of more than a dozen spaghetti myth and ancient history films Reeves made. Some reviewers refer to these as sword and sandal flicks. The Europeans loved Reeves. He didn't rise to the stardom that Clint Eastwood did from his spaghetti westerns. American audiences through most of the 20th century liked Westerns. But interest in ancient history, mythology and far eastern cultures has been hit and miss over the years. In the mid 1950s to early 1960s, Reeves made a number of such films. They were generally well-received at the box office, but none were great cinematic achievements. His most famous role was as Hercules. Also, unlike Eastwood, Reeves wasn't interested in pursing a movie career. He turned down a couple of lead roles in what became blockbuster films in the U.S. And he gave up a movie career less than 20 years after he started. He wrote a health book, promoted nutrition and raised horses. I enjoyed a couple of other reviews for "The Giant of Marathon" that gave some good history and background. Reeves is OK in his role here, and most of the cast are capable. But, as I said, the film seems disjointed and suffers from lower production qualities. But there are two things that stand out to me in this movie, and which earn it the six stars that I give it. The first was the embedding of the long spiked poles in the bay bottom to sink incoming ships. I don't think I've ever seen such interesting underwater scenes. I wonder if that really happened, or if it was done just for this film. The second plus for the film was the very realistic special effects of men being injured or killed in the sea battle. Several excellent scenes showed this. That was some very fine make-up, camera work, costuming and special effects. I don't think we saw such realistic killing and injury shots on film again until "Saving Private Ryan" five decades later. History buffs especially should enjoy this film.

The giant of marathon is Phillipides (Steve Reeves) - an Olympic champion and warrior called upon to defend ancient Greece against an invasion by Persia from without and the treason of Theocrates from within. In the course of doing that, he manages to get a couple of beauties to fall in love with him, of course.In all honesty, 80% of this movie is for the most part uninteresting, dealing with romances that I really didn't care about and political machinations that were rather confusing to say the least. It had a cheap feel right off the top, performances that were plodding and, as an Italian-French production, was rather poorly dubbed into English. I give credit for the last 20% or so of the movie, though. The closing sea battle between Athens and Persia was a pretty good ride, as Phillipides and Theocrates finally confront one another in battle. Still, though, it's not a good movie. For the sake of that closing battle, it gets 3/10

Giant of Marathon was made during a very busy 1959 for Steve Reeves, as he completed "Hercules Unchained", "The Great White Warrior", and "Goliath and the Barbarians" while also making Giant of Marathon. Steve Reeves was by far the king of these so called "sword and sandal" epics churning out of Italy during the late 50s and early 60s...and why not? Reeves had a muscle bulging physique second to none and was by far the best looking of the muscle guys who made these Hercules type films in Italy. The story concerns the city of Athens and all of Greece being invaded by sea and land by the traitor Darius and his Persian army. Reeves is the hero of the olimpic games and a hero to all of Greece. As such a duo of traitors tries to convince him to team up with the Persians and attempt to lure him with wicked women and seduction. Along the way a very lovely Mylene Demengeot, a 1960s Angelina Jolie look alike with the big lips becomes his love interest. Plenty of action on land and sea and a good wresting match with Reeves and a blubber gut wrestler who feels insulted by Reeves. Check out the underwater scenes with Reeve's greeks planting long speared boulders in the water to sink Persian ships. This is a typical Reeves muscleman epic. Just watching the lovely Demengeot throughout is fun for the male audience. Reeves basically single handedly wipes out the persians and the traitors and wins his love interest in the end. Good fun for the Saturday afternoon crowd and Reeves fans in general.