| Maciste in Hell | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Maciste all'inferno | |
| Directed by | Guido Brignone |
| Screenplay by | Riccardo Artuffo and Stefano Pittaluga |
| Cinematography | Ubaldo Arata and Massimo Terzano |
Release date |
|
Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | silent |
Maciste all'inferno (Italian for "Maciste in Hell") is an Italian silent film directed by Guido Brignone published in 1925.
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Maciste is one of the oldest recurring characters of cinema, created by Gabriele d'Annunzio and Giovanni Pastrone. He is featured throughout the history of the cinema of Italy from the 1910s to the mid-1960s.
The Sons of Hercules is a syndicated Embassy Pictures television show that aired in the United States in the 1960s. The series repackaged 13 Italian sword-and-sandal films by giving them a standardized theme song for the opening and closing titles, as well as a standard introductory narration attempting to relate the lead character in each film to the Greek demigod Hercules. These films however were not all originally made as "Hercules" films in Italy. Although two of them did originally feature Hercules, four of the films were originally Maciste movies in Italy, and the others were just isolated gladiator or mythological hero movies not released theatrically in the US.
Cabiria is a 1914 Italian epic silent film, directed by Giovanni Pastrone and shot in Turin. The film is set in ancient Sicily, Carthage, and Cirta during the period of the Second Punic War. It follows the story of an abducted little girl, Cabiria, and features an eruption of Mount Etna, religious rituals in Carthage, the alpine trek of Hannibal, Archimedes' defeat of the Roman fleet at the Siege of Syracuse and Scipio maneuvering in North Africa. Apart from being a classic on its own terms, the film is also notable for being the first film in which the long-running film character Maciste makes his debut. According to Martin Scorsese, in this work Pastrone invented the epic movie and deserves credit for many of the innovations often attributed to D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Among those was the extensive use of a moving camera, thus freeing the feature-length narrative film from "static gaze".
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.
Bartolomeo Pagano was an Italian motion picture actor.
Samson and His Mighty Challenge is a 1964 Italian sword-and-sandal film, released in 1965 at the very tail end of the peplum craze. Its original title was Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili. It is also known as Samson and the Mighty Challenge, Combate dei Gigantes, Triumph of the Giants or Le Grand Defi.
Hercules Against the Moon Men is a 1964 Franco-Italian international co-production sword and sandal film. It was directed by Giacomo Gentilomo in his final film and stars Alan Steel and Jany Clair. The English version of the film runs for 90 minutes and is dubbed.
Colossus and the Headhunters, is a 1963 Italian peplum film written and directed by Guido Malatesta, and starring Kirk Morris.
Hercules in the Vale of Woe, a.k.a. Hercules in the Valley of Woe, is a 1961 Italian Franco and Ciccio comedy film directed by Mario Mattoli and starring Kirk Morris as Maciste and Frank Gordon as Hercules. The film is a comical take on the popular sword-and-sandal epics of the 1950s and 1960s.
Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules is a 1962 film directed by Guido Malatesta that was filmed in Yugoslavia and Italy.
Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules is a 1961 Italian peplum film directed by Antonio Leonviola and starring Mark Forest.
Maciste alla corte del Gran Khan, also known as Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World, and Maciste at the Court of the Great Khan, is a 1961 international co-production starring Gordon Scott. The film reused the sets, extras and Yoko Tani as a princess from Marco Polo (1961) and Freda's The Mongols (1961). The film was distributed in the United States by American International Pictures.
The Witch's Curse is a 1962 Italian peplum-fantasy film, directed by Riccardo Freda.
Goliath and the Vampires is a 1961 Italian peplum film directed by Sergio Corbucci and Giacomo Gentilomo. The film features the famed superhero Maciste as its main character, although the American release changes his name to Goliath, as American International Pictures felt that the name "Maciste" was not significant to American audiences.
Maciste in the Lion's Cage, also known as The Hero of the Circus, is a 1926 Italian silent adventure film directed by Guido Brignone and starring Bartolomeo Pagano, Elena Sangro, and Luigi Serventi. It was part of the popular Maciste series of films. It was the penultimate film of the silent series, followed by The Giant of the Dolomites (1927).
Emperor Maciste is a 1924 Italian silent adventure film directed by Guido Brignone and starring Bartolomeo Pagano, Domenico Gambino and Franz Sala. It was part of the peplum series of silent films featuring the strongman Maciste. The character of Maciste increasingly came to resemble Benito Mussolini, in this case striking Fascistic poses and defending order against criminal and dishonest elements.
Franz Sala (1886–1952) was an Italian film actor who appeared in over seventy films, mostly during the silent era. As his acting career wound down, he began to work as a makeup artist often credited as Francesco Sala. In some of his earliest films he played leading roles, but later often played supporting parts such as in Emperor Maciste (1924).
Maciste against the Sheik is a 1926 Italian silent adventure film directed by Mario Camerini and starring Bartolomeo Pagano, Franz Sala and Felice Minotti. It was part of the long-running Maciste series of Peplum films.
Antonio Leonviola, sometimes Leon Viola (1913–1995), was an Italian screenwriter and film director and co-founder of the "Libera Università del Cinema di Roma".
Maciste and the Chinese Chest is a 1923 German silent action film directed by Carl Boese and starring Bartolomeo Pagano, Rudolf Lettinger, and Jakob Tiedtke. It was one of several German films featuring the Italian peplum hero Maciste.