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.
Alexander Crichlow Barker Jr., known as Lex Barker, was an American actor. He was known for playing Tarzan for RKO Pictures between 1949 and 1953, and portraying leading characters from Karl May's novels, notably as Old Shatterhand in a film series by the West German studio Constantin Film. At the height of his fame, he was one of the most popular actors in German-speaking cinema, and received Bambi Award and Bravo Otto nominations for the honor.
Fess Elisha Parker Jr. was an American film and television actor best known for his portrayals of the title characters in the Walt Disney television miniseries Davy Crockett and the television series Daniel Boone.
Charles McGraw was an American stage, film and television actor whose career spanned more than three decades.
The Hall of Great Western Performers is a hall of fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It is a 4,000-square-foot (370 m2) presentation that explores how the American West has been interpreted in literature and film. Each year, the museum inducts performers to the hall in conjunction with the awarding of the Western Heritage Awards.
Noah Nicholas Beery was an American actor who appeared in films from 1913 until his death in 1946. He was the older brother of Academy Award-winning actor Wallace Beery as well as the father of prominent character actor Noah Beery Jr. He was billed as either Noah Beery or Noah Beery Sr. depending upon the film.
Old Yeller is a 1957 American Western drama film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney. It stars Dorothy McGuire and Fess Parker, with Tommy Kirk, and Kevin Corcoran. It is about a boy and a stray dog in post-Civil War Texas. The film is based upon the 1956 novel of the same name by Fred Gipson. Gipson also co-wrote the screenplay along with William Tunberg.
Roy Roberts was an American character actor. Over his more than 40-year career, he appeared in more than nine hundred productions on stage and screen.
Lane Chandler was an American actor specializing mainly in Westerns.
William Finlay Currie was a Scottish actor of stage, screen, and television. He received great acclaim for his roles as Abel Magwitch in the British film Great Expectations (1946) and as Balthazar in the American film Ben-Hur (1959).
Jane Porter is a fictional character in Edgar Rice Burroughs's series of Tarzan novels and in adaptations of the saga to other media, particularly film. Jane, an American from Baltimore, Maryland, is the daughter of professor Archimedes Q. Porter. She becomes the love interest, later the wife of Tarzan and subsequently the mother of their son, Korak. She develops over the course of the series from a conventional damsel in distress, who must be rescued from various perils, to an educated, competent and capable adventuress in her own right, fully capable of defending herself and surviving on her own in the jungles of Africa.
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is a 1938 American musical comedy film directed by Allan Dwan, and written by Don Ettlinger, Karl Tunberg, Ben Markson and William M. Conselman, the third adaptation of Kate Douglas Wiggin's 1903 novel of the same name.
Away All Boats is a 1956 American war film directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Jeff Chandler, George Nader, Lex Barker, and Julie Adams. It was produced by Howard Christie from a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman based on the 1953 novel by Kenneth M. Dodson (1907–1999), who served on the USS Pierce (APA-50) in World War II and used his experiences there as a guide for his novel. He was encouraged in his writing by Carl Sandburg, who had read some of Dodson’s letters, written in the Pacific. The book is about the crew of the Belinda (APA-22), an amphibious attack transport. The book became a best seller. The film was produced by Universal Pictures.
The Velvet Touch is a 1948 American film noir drama directed by Jack Gage and starring Rosalind Russell, Leon Ames, Leo Genn and Claire Trevor.
Tarzan and the She-Devil is a 1953 American film directed by Kurt Neumann and starring Lex Barker as Tarzan and Joyce MacKenzie as Jane. The seventeenth film of the Tarzan film series that began with 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man, it also features Raymond Burr, Tom Conway and Monique van Vooren, who plays the "She-Devil."
Springfield Rifle is an American Western film directed by Andre de Toth and released by Warner Bros. Pictures in 1952. The film is set during the American Civil War and stars Gary Cooper, with Phyllis Thaxter and Lon Chaney Jr.
Bulldog Drummond Escapes is a 1937 American mystery thriller film directed by James P. Hogan and starring Ray Milland as Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond alongside Heather Angel and Reginald Denny. Paramount continued with the Bulldog Drummond series, producing seven more films over the next two years. They replaced Milland with John Howard.
Drango is a 1957 American Western film produced by Jeff Chandler's production company Earlmar Productions, written and directed by Hall Bartlett, and released by United Artists. Starring Chandler in the title role, the film also features Ronald Howard, Joanne Dru, Julie London and Donald Crisp. Set in the town of Kennesaw, Georgia in the months immediately following the American Civil War, the story depicts the efforts of a resolute Union Army officer who had participated in the town's destruction during Sherman's March determined to make amends.
Bulldog Drummond's Peril is a 1938 American adventure crime mystery film directed by James P. Hogan and starring John Barrymore and John Howard. The film is based on Herman C. McNeile's novel The Third Round.
Murder In the Fleet is a 1935 American murder mystery/comedy-drama film set aboard USS Carolina. Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the film was directed by Edward Sedgwick and stars Robert Taylor and Jean Parker.
