Assignment for Thursday, 10-06-16

Dear Mythologists,

For Thursday, October 6, please do the following:

(1) PEPLUM DOUBLE FEATURE! Watch Hercules Unchained (Pietro Francisci, 1959), the sequel to Hercules (1958); and Hercules against the Moon Men (1964). Take notes as you see fit. In addition to being reserved at the library (both are on disk 5 of the Sci-Fi Classics series), the films are also streaming on Amazon. As you watch, you might consider how the films uphold and/or subvert the conventions of the Hercules peplum genre as we have begun to define it.

(2) Read "Hercules, Politics, and Movies" by Maria Elena D'Amelio. Her essay — which appears in Of Muscles and Men (ed. M. Cornelius), a volume devoted to peplum — discusses how the late-50s and early-60s Hercules movies played in both Italy and the U.S.

(3) Remember by noon on Thursday to comment on this post with your choice of sequences from BOTH FILMS to view in class.

DC