La Battaglia di Maratona (1959) - film review

Athens, 480 BC.  Having triumphed in the Pentathlon at the Olympic Games, the musclebound athlete Philippides is honoured by being made chief of the Sacred Guard.  Among his new duties is ensuring the liberty and safety of Greece, at a time when the country is threatened by political ambitions both within and beyond its borders.  He does not know that a prominent Athenian, Theocrites, has formed an alliance with Darius, the King of Persia, so that the exiled former dictator Hippias may be returned to power.   By coercing Philippides into marrying his servant Charis, Theocrites plans to neutralise opposition to a Persian invasion.  The scheme is thwarted, not least because Philippides is already in love, with the fair Andromeda.  Realising that Darius is poised to launch an attack on Greece with a vast army, Philippides hastily goads his people into action, hoping that an alliance with Sparta will save the day.  He underestimates the resilience and size of the Persian army and as Darius turns his attention to Athens Philippides is quick to realise that courage and muscle are not enough.  The only way he can defeat Darius and the traitor Theocrites is by exercising his initiative...

La Battaglia di Maratona (aka Giant of Marathon) was director Jacques Tourneur’s one and only foray into the sword and sandals (péplum) genre that was highly popular, on both sides of the Atlantic, in the late 1950s, early 1960s.  Today, Tourneur is best remembered for the series of expressionistic horror films he made for Val Lewton at RKO in the early 1940s, notably Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943).  Tourneur’s penchant for understatement and psychological chills is manifestly ill-suited for the in-your-face grandeur of the péplum and so the film is hardly the most distinguished entry in his filmography, although it does have some artistic strengths and is a very respectable entry in an oft-derided genre.  

It is worth saying that Tourneur was not the only artistic force on the film.  When shooting fell way behind schedule, producer Bruno Vailati and cinematographer Mario Bava combined their efforts to complete the film,  and it is they who orchestrated the memorable final battle sequence.  Like Tourneur, Bava is better known today as a director of low budget fantasy films (in the science-fiction and horror genres), but unlike Tourneur his affinity for lurid visuals and grand guignol spectacle made him eminently suitable for the péplum genre.  Bava’s contribution can be felt far more than Tourneur’s, both in the striking visual composition of every shot (note the trademark use of contrasting primary colours) and in the blood-thirsty battle scenes, which made far fewer concessions to good taste than comparable Hollywood offerings in the genre.  The visceral nastiness and generous blood-letting that would feature prominently in Bava’s early giallo films is very much in evidence in the film’s explosive denouement. 

The casting is pretty much what you would expect for this kind of film. With his Olympian physique, Steve Reeves is effective in the role of the muscular hero, a role to which he became hopelessly typecast, whilst the beautiful Mylène Demongeot exploits every ounce of her very obvious sex appeal as the glamorous leading lady.   Sadly, the film is let down somewhat by its lacklustre supporting cast and formulaic plot, which ropes in all the standard pléplum clichés and offers few surprises.  The film would be easy to overlook were it not for the sheer beauty of Bava’s cinematography and the stunning marine battle sequence which concludes the film.

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