What 3-word term is given to the genre of kitschy Italian films of the mid 20th century that sought to emulate the historic epics of Hollywood like Spartacus?
"these 1980s entries were helmed by noted Italian horror film directors (Joe D'Amato, Lucio Fulci, Luigi Cozzi, etc.) and many featured actors Lou Ferrigno and Sabrina Siani. Here is a list of the 1980s pepla: Peplum (film genre) The peplum film (pepla plural), also known as sword-and-sandal, is a genre of largely Italian-made historical or Biblical epics (costume dramas) that dominated the Italian film industry from 1958 to 1965, eventually being replaced in 1965 by Eurospy films and Spaghetti Westerns. They can be immediately differentiated from the competing Hollywood product by their use of dubbing. The pepla attempted to emulate"
"declined in the late 1950s in favor of lighter films, such as those of the ""Commedia all'italiana"" genre and important directors like Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni. Actresses such as Sophia Loren, Giulietta Masina and Gina Lollobrigida achieved international stardom during this period. The Spaghetti Western achieved popularity in the mid-1960s, peaking with Sergio Leone's ""Dollars Trilogy"", which featured enigmatic scores by composer Ennio Morricone. Erotic Italian thrillers, or ""giallos"", produced by directors such as Mario Bava and Dario Argento in the 1970s, influenced the horror genre worldwide. During the 1980s and 1990s, directors such as Ermanno Olmi, Bernardo Bertolucci,"
"to the slasher films of the 1980s. The film franchise ""Scary Movie"" parodies this subgenre, along with similar horror films. A subtype featuring space, science fiction and horror in film. Spaghetti westerns are Italian-made westerns that emerged in the mid-1960s. They were more violent and amoral than typical Hollywood westerns. These films also often eschewed the conventions of Hollywood studio Westerns, which were primarily for consumption by conservative, mainstream American audiences. Examples of the genre include ""Death Rides a Horse"", ""Django"", ""The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"", ""Navajo Joe"", ""The Grand Duel"", ""The Great Silence"", ""For a Few Dollars"
"for the American audience, particularly his westerns. Ivano Staccioli Ivano Staccioli (3 January 1927 – 15 July 1995) was an Italian film actor. Staccioli made 70 appearances between 1960 and 1991, mostly in film. He is best known for his appearances in historical adventures and action or western films in the 1960s. Particularly in the early 1960s he appeared in many gladiatorial films or ancient epics. In 1965 he starred in the western ""30 Winchester per El Diablo"" and ""A 008, operazione Sterminio"", a spoof of the James Bond genre. In the mid to late 1960s he was often credited"
"such as Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni and Roberto Rossellini. Actresses such as Sophia Loren, Giulietta Masina and Gina Lollobrigida achieved international stardom during this period. Since the early 1960s they also popularized a large number of genres and subgenres, such as Peplum, Macaroni Combat, Musicarello, Poliziotteschi and Commedia sexy all'italiana. The Spaghetti Western achieved popularity in the mid-1960s, peaking with Sergio Leone's ""Dollars Trilogy"", which featured enigmatic scores by composer Ennio Morricone. Erotic Italian thrillers, or ""Giallos"", produced by directors such as Mario Bava and Dario Argento in the 1970s, influenced the"
"Giallo Giallo (; plural gialli) is a 20th-century Italian genre of literature and film. Especially outside Italy, ""giallo"" refers specifically to a particular Italian thriller-horror genre that has mystery or detective elements and often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, exploitation, sexploitation, and, less frequently, supernatural horror elements. In Italy, the term generally denotes thrillers, typically of the crime fiction, mystery, and horror subgenres, regardless of the country of origin. In English-speaking countries, the term ""giallo"" often refers to the Italian film version of the genre, a particular style of Italian-produced murder mystery thriller-horror film that usually blends"
"of Italian adventure films made in the early 1960s. When the ""Hercules"" film craze hit in 1959, Italian filmmakers were looking for other muscleman characters similar to Hercules whom they could exploit, resulting in the nine-film Ursus series listed below. Ursus was referred to as a ""Son of Hercules"" in two of the films when they were dubbed in English (in an attempt to cash in on the then-popular ""Hercules"" craze), although in the original Italian films, Ursus had no connection to Hercules whatsoever. In the English-dubbed version of one Ursus film (retitled ""Hercules, Prisoner of Evil""), Ursus was actually"
"Poliziotteschi Poliziotteschi (; plural of poliziottesco) constitute a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as Italo-crime, Euro-crime, poliziesco, spaghetti crime films, or simply Italian crime films. Influenced by both 1970s French crime films and gritty 1960s and 1970s American cop films and vigilante films, poliziotteschi films were made amidst an atmosphere of socio-political turmoil in Italy and increasing Italian crime rates. The films generally featured graphic and brutal violence, organized crime, car chases, vigilantism, heists, gunfights, and corruption"
"Italian Spiderman Italian Spiderman is an Australian film parody of Italian action–adventure films of the 1960s and 1970s, first released on YouTube in 2007. The parody purports to be a ""lost Italian film"" by Alrugo Entertainment, an Australian film-making collective formed by Dario Russo, Tait Wilson, David Ashby, Will Spartalis and Boris Repasky. Ostensibly an Italian take on the comic book superhero Spider-Man, the film is a reference to foreign movies that misappropriate popular American superheroes such as the Turkish film ""3 Dev Adam"", and licensed series such as the Japanese TV series ""Spider-Man"", both of which alter the character"
"and the lowest were honoured as the highest. Some Roman reenactors attempt to recreate Roman gladiator troupes. Some of these groups are part of larger Roman reenactment groups, and others are wholly independent, though they might participate in larger demonstrations of Roman reenacting or historical reenacting in general. These groups usually focus on portraying mock gladiatorial combat in as accurate a manner as possible. Gladiator fights have been depicted in a number of peplum films (also known as ""sword-and-sandal"" movies). This is a genre of largely Italian-made historical epics (costume dramas) that dominated the Italian film industry from 1958 to"
"successful Italian films of that kind were ""Black Eagle"" from 1946, and ""Fabiola"" from 1949. Inspired by the success of ""Spartacus"", there were a number of Italian peplums that heavily emphasized the gladiatorial arena in their plots, with it becoming almost a peplum subgenre in itself; One group of supermen known as ""The Ten Gladiators"" appeared in a trilogy, all three films starring Dan Vadis in the lead role. With the interest in the Elizabeth Taylor ""Cleopatra"" film shot in Rome, several Italian films sought to ride its wave of publicity. 20th Century Fox bought the rights for two of"
"film mimicked the success of American films such as ""The Dirty Dozen"" and ""Where Eagles Dare"". Like spaghetti westerns, Euro War films were characterized by their production in the Italian language, low budgets, added violence, and a recognizable highly fluid and minimalist cinematography. This was partly intentional and partly the context and cultural background of the filmmakers. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the films were almost all set during World War II with a few about mercenaries in Africa following the success of ""Dark of the Sun"" and later, ""The Wild Geese"". In the 1980s most entries in the genre"
"them to keep them out of release. After the peplum gave way to the Spaghetti Western and Eurospy films in 1965, the genre lay dormant for close to 20 years. Then in 1982, the box-office success of Arnold Schwarzenegger's ""Conan the Barbarian"" spurred a second renaissance of sword and sorcery Italian pepla in the five years immediately following. Most of these films had low budgets, focusing more on barbarians and pirates so as to avoid the need for expensive Greco-Roman sets. The filmmakers tried to compensate for their shortcomings with the addition of some graphic gore and nudity. Many of"
"who was unhappy with what he deemed the genre's ""fascistic"" undertones, credits himself for ""destroying it from the inside"", by making it evolve into self-parody. By the end of the decade, the most successful films associated with the genre were crime-comedy pictures, which gradually evolved towards pure comedy. Poliziotteschi Poliziotteschi (; plural of poliziottesco) constitute a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as Italo-crime, Euro-crime, poliziesco, spaghetti crime films, or simply Italian crime films. Influenced by both 1970s"
"""The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"" and ""Once Upon a Time in the West"". The mid-1940s to the early 1950s was the heyday of neorealist films, reflecting the poor condition of post-war Italy. As the country grew wealthier in the 1950s, a form of neorealism known as pink neorealism succeeded, and other film genres, such as sword-and-sandal followed as spaghetti westerns, were popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Actresses such as Sophia Loren, Giulietta Masina and Gina Lollobrigida achieved international stardom during this period. Erotic Italian thrillers, or ""giallos"", produced by directors such as Mario Bava and Dario Argento"
"Cinema and the stylistic aspect of film has been the most important factor in the history of Italian movies. In the early 1900s, artistic and epic films such as The Last Days of Pompeii (1908 film), L'Inferno (1911), Quo Vadis (1913), Otello (1906 film) and Cabiria (1914), were made as adaptations of books or stage plays. Italian filmmakers were utilizing complex set designs, lavish costumes, and record budgets, to produce pioneering films. One of the first cinematic avante-garde movements, Italian Futurism, took place in Italy in the late 1910s. After a period of decline in the 1920s, the Italian film"
"Festival), ""La notte di San Lorenzo"" by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Antonioni's ""Identificazione di una donna"", and ""Bianca"" and ""La messa è finita"" by Nanni Moretti. Although not entirely Italian, Bertolucci's ""The Last Emperor"", winner of 9 Oscars, and ""Once Upon a Time in America"" of Sergio Leone came out of this period also. During this time, commedia sexy all'italiana films, described as ""trash films"", were popular in Italy. These comedy films were of little artistic value and reached their popularity by confronting Italian social taboos, most notably in the sexual sphere. Actors such as Lino Banfi, Diego Abatantuono, Alvaro"
"films were fantasy-based, however. Many featured actual historical personalities such as Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Hannibal, although great liberties were taken with the storylines. Gladiators, pirates, knights, Vikings, and slaves rebelling against tyrannical kings were also popular subjects. But, similar to the American serials of the 1940s, the peplum always focuses on the hero's narrow escapes from the most preposterous dangers throughout the course of the film. A 100 minute documentary on the history of Italy's peplum genre was produced and directed by Antonio Avati in 1977 entitled ""Kolossal: i magnifici Maciste"". Italian filmmakers led the way in the peplum"
"most expensive film ever made at the time. Far from leading to a decline in Italian cinema, the native industry boomed during the era. In 1960, Italian films outperformed American imports to Italy for the first time since 1946. However, there was a growing influence of Hollywood-style productions, as popular Italian genres such as the Sword-and-sandal and Spaghetti Western attempted to imitate successful Hollywood productions. Italian actors and directors often adopted English-sounding names. Cinecittà was at the peak of its international fame between the production of ""Ben Hur"" and ""Cleopatra"" (1958-1960). As the 1960s drew on, the fashion for classical"
"new rougher form. For many critics, Sergio Leone's films were part of the problem. Leone's ""Dollars Trilogy"" (1964–1966) was not the beginning of the ""Spaghetti Western"" cycle in Italy, but for Americans Leone's films represented the true beginning of the Italian invasion of an American genre. Christopher Frayling, in his noted book on the Italian Western, describes American critical reception of the Spaghetti Western cycle as, to ""a large extent, confined to a sterile debate about the 'cultural roots' of the American/Hollywood Western."" He remarks that few critics dared admit that they were, in fact, ""bored with an exhausted Hollywood"
"While the ""Ilsa"" series were profitable, the other films were mostly box-office flops, and the genre all but vanished by the mid-1980s. In Italy, these films are known as part of the ""il sadiconazista"" cycle, which were inspired by such art-house films as Liliana Cavani's ""The Night Porter"" (1974), Pier Paolo Pasolini's ""Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom"" (1975), and Tinto Brass's ""Salon Kitty"" (1976). Prominent directors of the genre include Paolo Solvay (""La Bestia in Calore"", also known as ""The Beast in Heat"" and ""SS Hell Camp""), Cesare Canevari (""Last Orgy of the Third Reich"", also known as"
"is retained, while being filtered through horror genre elements and Italy's long standing tradition of opera and staged grand guignol drama. The structure of ""giallo"" films is also sometimes reminiscent of the so-called ""weird menace"" pulp magazine horror mystery genre of the 1930–1940s, a genre itself also heavily influenced by grand guignol and related to the original Italian ""giallo"" novels. It is important to note that while most gialli feature elements of this basic narrative structure, not all do. Some films (for example Mario Bava's 1970 ""Hatchet for the Honeymoon"", which features the killer as the protagonist) may radically alter"
"(especially the Commedia all'italiana, the French New Wave, and the Spaghetti Western) and Japanese cinema were making a splash in United States — the huge market of disaffected youth seemed to find relevance and artistic meaning in movies like Michelangelo Antonioni's ""Blowup"", with its oblique narrative structure and full-frontal female nudity. The desperation felt by studios during this period of economic downturn, and after the losses from expensive movie flops, led to innovation and risk-taking, allowing greater control by younger directors and producers. Therefore, in an attempt to capture that audience which found a connection to the ""art films"" of"
"Ivano Staccioli Ivano Staccioli (3 January 1927 – 15 July 1995) was an Italian film actor. Staccioli made 70 appearances between 1960 and 1991, mostly in film. He is best known for his appearances in historical adventures and action or western films in the 1960s. Particularly in the early 1960s he appeared in many gladiatorial films or ancient epics. In 1965 he starred in the western ""30 Winchester per El Diablo"" and ""A 008, operazione Sterminio"", a spoof of the James Bond genre. In the mid to late 1960s he was often credited as John Heston for Italian films dubbed"
"as mobsters, including films such as Martin Scorsese's ""Goodfellas"" and TV series such as David Chase's ""The Sopranos"". A comprehensive study of Italian American culture on film, conducted from 1996 to 2001 by the Italic Institute of America, showed that close to 300 movies featuring Italian Americans as mobsters (mostly fictitious) have been produced since ""The Godfather"", an average of nine per year. ""The Godfather"" epic, encompassing the original trilogy and the additional footage Coppola incorporated later, is by now thoroughly integrated into American life and, together with a succession of mob-theme imitators, has led to a highly stereotyped concept"
"initial use of camera dolly, that was technically very challenging for the time. Nerone (1930 film) Nerone (1930) is an Italian comedy film, directed by Alessandro Blasetti. It stars Ettore Petrolini as the main actor. It has been described as a ""Roman farce"", a genre which was popular in Italy at the time. It is a parody of imperial Rome and of the notorious Roman emperor, Nero. It was shot at the Cines Studios in Rome. According to some critics, this parody was actually a satire against the fascist dictatorship and Benito Mussolini. A full copy of the film no"
"they were often adaptation of stage plays of Hungarian authors (a popular source material also for Hollywood productions of the time). In fact, to avoid the limitations imposed by the censure of the fascist authorities, when potentially controversial topics were addressed in the plot (for instance divorce, at the time illegal in Italy, or adultery, a punishable offence by the contemporary Italian law) the action was often set in various, and sometimes imaginary, Eastern European countries, but always with Italian protagonists. The Neorealist filmmakers saw their gritty films as a reaction to the idealized Telefoni Bianchi style. They compared and"
"in cinematic style, music, acting and story decided the future for the genre. The Spaghetti Western was born, flourished and faded in a highly commercial production environment. The Italian ""low"" popular film production was basically low-budget and low-profit, and the easiest way to success was imitating a proven success. When the typically low-budget production ""A Fistful of Dollars"" turned into a remarkable box office success, the industry eagerly lapped up its innovations. Most succeeding Spaghetti Westerns tried to get a ragged, laconic hero with superhuman weapon skill, preferably one who looked like Clint Eastwood: Franco Nero, Giuliano Gemma, John Garko"
"Eurospy genres. The subgenre lost its mainstream popularity in the late 1970s as Italian erotic comedy and horror films started topping the Italian box office. Although based around crime and detective work, ""poliziotteschi"" should not be confused with the other popular Italian crime genre of the 1970s, the ""giallo"", which (incorrectly) refers to violent murder-mystery crime films. Directors and stars often moved between both forms, and some films could be considered under either banner, such as Massimo Dallamano's ""What Have They Done to Your Daughters?"" (1974). The ""poliziottesco"" subgenre gradually declined in popularity during the late 1970s. Screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti,"
"out of the earth in times of need). One of the 1920s silent Maciste films was actually entitled ""The Giant from the Dolomite"" (another reference that he was not born as an ordinary mortal man would have been). Hence it is hinted that Maciste is more god than man, which would explain his great strength. This sword and sandal fad continued for about six years, until the new fad for spaghetti Westerns and spy films took over the attention of the Italian cinema industry. The name Maciste was not in the title of the English versions of most of these"
"or horror thriller, regardless of its origin. Thus, American, British or other horror-thrillers such as ""Psycho"", ""Vertigo"", and ""Peeping Tom"" are considered ""gialli"". English-speaking audiences have used the term to refer specifically to the type of Italian-produced thriller-horror films known to Italian audiences as ""giallo all'italiana"". The film subgenre began as literal adaptations of the ""giallo"" mystery novels. Directors soon began taking advantage of modern cinematic techniques to create a unique genre that retained the mystery and crime fiction elements of ""giallo"" novels but veered more closely into the psychological thriller or psychological horror genres. Many of the typical characteristics"
"the atmosphere and suspense of thriller fiction with elements of horror fiction (such as slasher violence) and eroticism (similar to the French ""fantastique"" genre), and often involves a mysterious killer whose identity is not revealed until the final act of the film. The genre developed in the mid-to-late 1960s, peaked in popularity during the 1970s, and subsequently declined over the next few decades. (Some examples continue to be produced). It has been considered to be a predecessor to, and significant influence on, the later American slasher film genre. The word ""giallo"" is Italian for yellow. The term derives from a"
"sequels and spoofs that became collectively known as ""Decamerotici"". These spoofs can be considered the first ""commedia sexy"" films. The relaxation of Italian censors, beginning from the early '70s, paved the way for dozens of soft-core productions, often set in medieval or Renaissance times, even in prehistory, or peasant and rustic environments (""film pecorecci""). The ""commedia sexy"" was very successful commercially between the 1970s and early 1980s, although it was generally panned by critics (with a few exceptions such as several comedies starring Lando Buzzanca), and then declined when female nudity became common in Italian mainstream cinema, television and magazines,"