The Last Days of Pompeii (1960)

What a beautiful movie!

Good start, but then it gets ruined

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

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.)

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.

It's 1959, and the season of badly-dubbed spaghetti-easterns. As the title suggests, this wasn't a Hollywood epic.Steve Reeves briefly cornered the action-man market in the way that Stallone and Arnie did more recently. Here he plays a legionary who has come home to Pompeii. It's 79AD so that's not a very positive career-move. There's all kinds of trouble brewing in the old town, featuring a gang of nocturnal murderers, and hapless Christians who are always good for a stoning. But the real trouble - as we all know - is brewing underground.Reeves had an excellent physique that is shown to maximum effect here. With one blow of his forearm he smashes a stout table in two. You don't want to upset him. Most of the movie fusses about the partisan squabbles and the murderous clique and keeps us waiting for what we know is going to happen.For a small budget movie the volcano effects and town destruction are not too bad, really. But it's still rather an anti-climax. This is really an advertisement for Mr Reeves and his mighty sinews as much as the power of Vesuvius. If you're a fan of well-figured young men, you'll definitely enjoy this, otherwise...It's about on a par with the longer, but similarly plotted and paced though better-dubbed 'Sodom & Gomorrah'. Don't wait up to watch either; you could have more convincing dreams.

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.