Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Wizard-8 Unlike most other European sword and sandal movies of this period, "The Giant of Marathon" was picked up for North American distribution by a major Hollywood studio (Metro Goldwyn Mayer). My guess is that MGM was trying to cash in on the box office success that independent studio Embassy Pictures has with "Hercules", another sword and sandal movie with the same actor (Steve Reeves). That's the only reason why I can think of, because honestly I can't see any other selling points that the movie has. Even by standards of the era, the movie is really dull for the most part; for one thing, there is almost no action in the first half of the movie. While the second half does have some battlefield action, it's not particularly well choreographed or directed; it's not that much more exciting than what happened in the first half of the movie. Most of the movie is instead talk talk talk, none it it really engaging or interesting. I'm sure audiences back then were really bored by this movie. So it's no wonder that nobody was apparently interested in renewing the copyright for the movie, since it's now in the public domain and freely available to bore a new generation of moviegoers.

bkoganbing Giant Of Marathon is a cut above the peplum films of the Italian cinema, being directed by Jacques Tourneur. The film concerns the activities of one Phillipides, played by Steve Reeves who goes running around all of Greece as an ancient Paul Revere arousing the populace with the sum and substance cry of 'The Persians Are Coming'. Indeed they were.The ancient histories beginning with Herodotus tell of the athlete/runner who brought news of the Greek victory and then promptly died as his body gave out. Here Tourneur opted for a happy ending, but the film is still good with some very nicely staged battle scenes.Phillipides was probably the first celebrity athlete in the history of the world. As the winner of one of those original Olympic games he was a sports celebrity figure back in those ancient times. And because of that he's the guy sent on a diplomatic mission to Sparta to get those rival city states working together to beat back the Persians. Of course Phillipides does just that, but Athens is facing some problems from what would later be called fifth columnists in the city. Phillipides has to deal with them as well.Steve Reeves as athlete is not shown as a runner, he's shown heaving a discus which would be more in line with the kind of a support his upper body would be an asset for. In fact as a runner all that weight on top would be quite the liability. But he sure looked good.Giant Of Marathon would not be considered a great film in most quarters. But it is Citizen Kane next to some of the peplum films I've been viewing lately.

mhrabovsky1-1 Giant of Marathon was made during a very busy 1959 for Steve Reeves, as he completed "Hercules Unchained", "The Great White Warrior", and "Goliath and the Barbarians" while also making Giant of Marathon. Steve Reeves was by far the king of these so called "sword and sandal" epics churning out of Italy during the late 50s and early 60s...and why not? Reeves had a muscle bulging physique second to none and was by far the best looking of the muscle guys who made these Hercules type films in Italy. The story concerns the city of Athens and all of Greece being invaded by sea and land by the traitor Darius and his Persian army. Reeves is the hero of the olimpic games and a hero to all of Greece. As such a duo of traitors tries to convince him to team up with the Persians and attempt to lure him with wicked women and seduction. Along the way a very lovely Mylene Demengeot, a 1960s Angelina Jolie look alike with the big lips becomes his love interest. Plenty of action on land and sea and a good wresting match with Reeves and a blubber gut wrestler who feels insulted by Reeves. Check out the underwater scenes with Reeve's greeks planting long speared boulders in the water to sink Persian ships. This is a typical Reeves muscleman epic. Just watching the lovely Demengeot throughout is fun for the male audience. Reeves basically single handedly wipes out the persians and the traitors and wins his love interest in the end. Good fun for the Saturday afternoon crowd and Reeves fans in general.

dbborroughs Maybe its the dubbing, but this story of a Greek hero who is at first the key to taking control of Athens and later to beating the invading the Persians, should have worked. Certainly it's the best looking Steve Reeves movie, with some really good action sequences but this movie is awful.If its not the the dubbing then perhaps its the editing and direction which appears to have taken the "lets use every piece of available footage" approach to film construction. Sequences go on and on and on. We Persians invade and we get to see every soldier land in Greece, and we see a boulder crash into a camera. Why couldn't the sequences have been trimmed. It makes things seem last for hours despite it only being 90 minutes long.Another clunker from Reeves.