Les Derniers Jours de Pompéi

Once again Steve Reeves is perfectly cast in a period film -- this time set in the final days of Pompeii with paranoia about Christianity running rampant. The costumes are exquisite (though perhaps more GREEK than ROMAN if you know your history and fabric patterns), with a MAJOR plot twist towards the end -- NO SPOILERS, go watch the movie! -- as Reeves investigates his father's murder.

There's some confusion as to why folks in Pompeii were worshiping the Egyptian Isis throughout the movie, so I'll have to hit the history books again to see if that was a thing or just a liberty taken by the director. (To my knowledge they followed the usual suspects: Mercury, Minerva, Neptune, etc.)

this was the film steve hurt his shoulder and had to stop lifting heavy weights and lost lbs. believe or not he said in an interview he trained only one month out of the year when he was making movies in europe.thats why he looked bigger in some movies than others.his thickest was in goliath and the barbarians and lightest giant of marathon.a lot of copies of this film are made by GOOD TIMES VIDEO stay away from these copies they are BAD.good times copied all there DVD's and VHS in EP mode.again do not ever buy a GOOD TIMES VIDEO.so just a warning if u buy a cope. and be weary of goliath and barbarians copies and others most are copied from some Italian print.i did get a great copy of thief of bagdad and morgan the pirate.

This may have been the first film Steve (Mr. Hercules, himself) Reeves made after his enormously popular two Hercules films. Reeves certainly did not lose any of his granite carved physique before signing on to do this film. Story concerns Reeves as roman tribune who returns home to Pompeii after a sabattical in the roman legions. He discovers his father dead and seeks out to avenge his murder, all the while keeping the ruling class in Pompeii in worry that he may use his influence and go to Rome to emperor Tiberius. The christians are blamed for a load of murders in and around Pompeii, but in the background it is not the christians who are committing murders but a well organized band of roman traitors, who disguise as leaders during the day but murderers at night. One of the corrupt leaders is the lovely Anne Marie Bauman, who merrily rides along on a home made roman sled early in the film. Even the local church leader is part of the gang of henchmen...Reeves meets the daughter of the roman counsel and a relationship begins. Reeves is in love, but doubts the sincerity and truth of the lovely Christine Kaufman who is a self professed Christian and meets secretly with them at night in a cave. Reeves quickly discovers and learns the christians are not murderers and sets out to prove it...he then gets gang attacked by the roman traitors. Correct part of the film shows blind roman girl named Nydia who is also a Christian convert and is a maid to Kaufman. In the original novel about Pompeii there is a blind girl named Nydia. Soon Reeves fights off and kills band of traitors along with the help of his followers. Volcano then erupts and shows the total destruction of Pompeii....only Reeves and Kaufman are able to escape via a small boat.....very good special effects showing the destruction of Pompeii with Reeves running in the streets trying to find his love.... Check out scene with Reeves pulling chains out of prison walls and his set of massive biceps bulging. Reeves certainly had the body of a roman gladiator and then some...a body carved from granite. Of of Reeves best films.

Sergio Leone's uncredited debut is nowhere near the masterpieces he churned out starting from A Fistful of Dollars. His credited debut Colossus of Rhodes is a much better Sword and Sandal film. The production design, very good looking men and women and the widescreen cinematography are the good things in here. The bland acting(?) by most of the actors, ludicrous plot etc makes it uninteresting for the most part. Including a bit of homosexuality is commendable for the time period. Even though most of the film is not very good there are moments that entertains and makes it a little memorable.

This was loosely based on the 1834 novel by Bulwer-Lytton and is a "sword and sandals" epic that was made in Italy and dubbed into English.Steve Reeves is a Roman noblemans' son. While he is away, his father is killed by villains who leave a black cross painted at the murder site, to implicate Christians.

When the disaster Finally happens, the fire special effects are OK, but not much more, but the eruptions also cause earthquakes, making those much more impressive.

Among the films' stupidities: one character answers to four different names in the film; the character is named Nydia, but also answers to Nivia, Lyvia, and Lydia--I have no idea what people were thinking in dubbing. Film periodically yelps about converting pagans, but doesn't trouble itself to keep track of non-pagans once they've fulfilled plot requirements: they're just cardboard characters to be eliminated in the final fifteen minutes. the film flat-out forgets a character in the climactic scenes. In the final analysis the film is silly, but a Lot more enjoyable than more Important (and pretentious) movies.

Christine Kaufman, who also starred in this film, has conflicting biographical and professional information available. One source says she made one film, another three, still another says she made thirty films. This website says she has 111 filmed appearances to her name.