Starring: Steve Reeves, Mylène Demongeot, Sergio Fantoni
Director: Jacques Tourneur, Mario Bava
Writers: Alberto Barsanti, Ennio De Concini, Augusto Frassinetti, Raffaello Pacini, Bruno Vailati
Genre: Sword and sandal
Year: 1959
My rating:
One of the few facts offered by the summary on the back of the Digiview Productions DVD case is that THE GIANT OF MARATHON features "a bevy of beautiful actors and actresses outfitted in very skimpy costumes". While I welcome words like "bevy" from a DVD distributor that once put the word "rewenge" (sic) on a front cover, this description -- appealing as it is -- does not suggest that the film will be filled with witty dialog, cunning plot twists and well-drawn, multi-dimensional characters.
And after viewing the film, I feel my initial suspicions were proved correct. However, this does not make GIANT a bad film. Indeed, I felt this was only half a bad film. The good half of the film is its large-scale battle sequences which are truly staggering and go a long way towards affirming the DVD cover's proclamation of this film as an epic.
But before we get to the battles, we must discuss the story. You'll remember Steve Reeves from his stint as Hercules in the most famous "sword and sandal" movies (a genre in which this film comfortably sits). Here he plays Phillipides, the eponymous hero, a person defined almost entirely by the characteristics of being huge and strong (I had to keep reminding myself that he wasn't playing Hercules again). Phil opens the movie winning the Olympic Games by being better at throwing pointed sticks, hurling massive stones, running in circles, and all the other sports from before the introduction of aberrations such as Olympic beach volleyball and snowboarding.
After doing so well at these sports and being declared the champion, he is naturally given the opportunity to head the Athenian army (thankfully this practice of awarding military commands in lieu of gold metals has been discontinued today, thus we are spared the spectacle of Rear Admiral Flying Tomato). Unfortunately, this isn't a cushy Pentagon desk job; these are busy times for the Athenian military. Not only are they facing an impending invasion by the Persians, but there are traitors in their midst. Sadly for Athens' sake, Phil may be an excellent javelin thrower, but he is unable to realize that the Very Obviously Evil character is actually working for his enemies.
Phil basically has two things to accomplish during the course of this film. He wants to win the affection of Andromeda (an Athenian woman, not the galaxy, and apparently no relation to the Andromeda of myth) away from the man her father has declared she will marry. He also must unite Athens and Sparta against the incoming hordes of Persia. Fortunately for Phil, he's a hell of a lot bigger than anyone else, so he can accomplish these goals without too much effort.
The depiction of Ancient Greece is actually not that bad at all. Of course, you must realize that this is an Ancient Greece where both women and men run around in mini-dresses and baggy underpants because dignity would not be invented for hundreds of years. But there are some nice references to actual mythology which should bring a vaguely remembered story out of the far recesses of the audience member's mind. Of course, the movie does take some liberties. Phil, for example, becomes the man behind the story of the first marathon runner (note the film's title). While -- according to legend -- the first marathon runner died after high-tailing the 26.2 miles from Marathon to Athens in order to bring news of the Battle of Marathon, Phil just needs a couple minutes of rest to recover.
However, for the most part, this is a fairly dull movie. Even allowing for the fact that I'm not a big fan of the sword and sandal genre, this one seemed particularly slow at moving pieces of the story around. The characters need to do things that are obvious, their schemes are predictable, and they take forever to actually do anything.
That said, when the movie does get around to having something occur, it's surprisingly good at it.
Now keep in mind that I am usually bored by most battle sequences. For my money, large battle sequences are the points in movies where audiences are expected to get up and get themselves a fresh beer or, alternatively, to get up and empty the previous beer from their person. (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is the ultimate get drunk or get dehydrated movie.) However, this film truly does offer a spectacle worth watching.
It's not just a bunch of sweaty Italian extras beating the hell out of each other (though there is that); there are some very well staged battle sequences that look extremely impressive and must have taken a lot of time and effort to implement. I don't know if real life huge battles with long lines of soldiers on horses attacking rows of men in fixed shielded positions would have looked exactly like they're portrayed here, but they must have looked damn close.
While most of the fights look impressive, even the more ludicrous or physically impossible scenes are hard to dislike. Case in point: there's a long underwater battle which would have required the soldiers to hold their breath (while fighting!) for about a quarter of an hour. It's silly on its face, but I won't deny it's still visually spectacular.
It's hard for me to summarize my overall reaction to this film, because I spent no time between the two extremes of either falling asleep or staring at the screen in awe. So, I'll give this a wishy-washy middling ranking. If you like the sword and sandals genre, then I'm guessing you'll like the Scenes That Didn't Involve Massive Bloodshed a lot more than I did. And even if you don't care for the genre, I dare you not to be impressed by the Scenes That Do Involve Massive Bloodshed.
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