With Fire and Sword [Hardcover]

Patrick Lucanio (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0810828162 | ISBN-13: 978-0810828162 | Publication Date: June 1, 1994 | Edition: annotated edition

With Fire and Sword is a comprehensive study of the English-dubbed Italian spectacles produced in the 1960s which are often described as "beefcake" and "sword'n'sandal" epics. Termed respectably peplum by the many French critics who thought highly of the genre, such films as Hercules and Goliath and the Barbarians held a fascination for American movie and television audiences at a time of social and political turmoil. Using myth criticism to extract value in the films, the book first presents a descriptive study of the genre by defining its characteristics before analyzing its motifs, iconography, and narrative patterns; as a result, the book concludes that the films exerted a fairy tale appeal to their audiences which effectively reduced the vicissitudes of political confusion to manageable yet nonetheless sophisticated terms. The book then presents a comprehensive filmography of over 300 films with most titles annotated with synopses, casts, credits, production notes, critical responses, and historical associations. Complementing the text are numerous stills, advertising art, and frame enlargements from significant works. The book also contains appendices on early films, on related English-language films, and on related foreign films produced in countries other than Italy. Also included are a comprehensive bibliography and index.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Patrick Lucanio (Ph.D., M.S., University of Oregon; M.A.T., B.S., Western Oregon State College) is a lecturer in Humanities at Western Oregon State College in Monmouth. A myth and Jungian critic with interests in film and American literature, Luciano has written numerous articles on film and television history and genre studies. He is the author of Them or Us: Archetypal Interpretations of Fifties Alien Invasion Films, the first book-length treatise of the 1950s monster movies. He is currently co-authoring a book on the contributions of Jack Webb to radio, television, and film.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 540 pages
• Publisher: Scarecrow Press; annotated edition edition (June 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810828162
• ISBN-13: 978-0810828162
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,173,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The only reference guide to "peplum" or sword & sandal films, August 6, 2001

By 

S. G. Oles (Seattle, WA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: With Fire and Sword (Hardcover)

Lucanio's is the only book I know on the subject of the Italian "peplum" movies of the 1950s and 1960s, most starring athletic bodybuilders like Steve Reeves, Mark Forest, Reg Park, Kirk Morris, etc.

After a truly insightful and engaging article on plot and character archetypes -- both mythological and Jungian -- used in these films, comes the book's biggest section by far: an "Annotated Filmography" of peplum films 1958-1968, with full credits and detailed plot summaries. As exhaustive as this is, I could have used more annotations ... comments on the quality, good points and bad points, of individual films, rather than such lengthy (and repetetive) plot summaries.

Peplum precursors are covered, as are similar films made in the U.S. or in other countries.

While too much of the book may be taken up by plot summaries, this is the ONLY reference book on this popular and prolific movie genre, which fell out of fashion in the late sixties and gave way to the next big Italian film fad: spaghetti westerns.