Tina Louise as Sappho, Warrior Chariotrix!

It was a feast for the eyes to see Tina Louise playing Sappho and at the reins of a chariot in The Warrior Empress!

I took these shots awhile ago, so I can’t even remember the plotline, but Kerwin Mathews, aka Sinbad of beloved Ray Harryhausen fanboy memory, played her stalwart lover. Yes, I know Sappho was a lesbian, and was a poet and not a warrior empress, but this was a 1960 sword-and-sandal movie, so…allowances must be made. And it was Tina Louise at her most beauteous!! It was fun.

Of course I had to include a shot where she looks sternly at somebody. Love my dominatrixes! 😉

Enjoy!

 

All hail Chelo Alonso on her 84th birthday!

April 10, 2017 is the 84th birthday of Chelo Alonso, the great star of sword-and-sandal movies, films also nicknamed “peplum” for the material used in the costumes of these Euro historical epics. Happy Birthday, Chelo!!

These are a few screencaps I made from a trailer for one of her starring vehicles, La Reine des Barbares, known as The Huns in English. Regrettably, I’ve never actually been able to see this film, but the preview makes it look pretty damn good!

You can see the full trailer on You Tube here. And if you look to the right of the trailer, you’ll find lots of clips of Chelo, especially doing the seductive dances in films like Sign of the Gladiator and Goliath and the Barbarians, for which she was famous. People would actually applaud her in movie theaters at the conclusion of her dances! There are even full Chelo movies you can watch on You Tube; I recommend Son of Samson, Atlas in the Land of Cyclops, and Terror of the Red Mask.

 

About ten years ago I wrote an article for the adult magazine SWANK about Chelo and French actress Mylene Demongeot and their peplum films. At that time there was very little stuff to be found on the Web about Chelo, but happily in the intervening years much more has popped up, including lots of video footage. If you want to read my article, entitled When Women Were the Special Effects, it’s here in my portfolio; just scroll down and you’ll find it.

 

Gosh…can you imagine being on the receiving end of a smouldering stare like this from the great Chelo Alonso??? 😉

 

Bella Cortez as a lusciously evil ancient queen!

In my considered opinion, what we need in modern cinema are more evil temptresses as in the epics of long ago…ladies like Bella Cortez as “Queen Akiba” in 1963’s Taur the Mighty…

The Cuban-born actress plays a very bad girl in this movie!

 

…sexy tyrants who can tempt heroes like Taur (Joe Robinson), which Bella did in this mix of sci-fi and sword-and-sandals…

The queen takes time out from villainy to snare, she hopes, the beefcake she craves!

 

…and inadvertently give sidekicks like Taur’s pal Ubaratutu (Harry Baird) some peeks at their sexy legs and feet!

Little do Taur and the queen know that sidekick Ubaratutu is hiding under the bed! Any room down there for me? 😉

 

I love these ancient history flicks from the 1960s. I guess my fondness for them is analogous to the fondness the generations of the 70s and 80s have toward the original Star Wars movies, films which I enjoyed as an adult but never felt particularly entranced by as I did by these gladiator movies in my adolescence, flicks brimming with gorgeous femmes fatale (and “nice girls” too, one of which Bella Cortez played in a similar sci-fi sword-and-sandals film called The Giant of Metropolis).

Back in the 90s when I was writing a lot of feature length porn films, I always wanted to write an X-rated movie taking place in ancient Rome or Greece, but alas, it never came to pass! Needless to say, I find these 60s films very erotic today.

Queen Akiba with one of her henchwomen.

 

I made these screencaps from the Sinister Cinema DVD of Taur the Mighty, available here!

“You will watch more sword-and-sandal movies…slave!“

 

Kneel before glorious Helga Liné, queen of gladiators and fiends!

I’ve been really busy these last couple of weeks with various freelance projects that all came due at the same time, and in order to relax my mind for a few minutes in the bustle of writing thousands of words of erotic prose per week, I sometimes go to You Tube to see a clip or two of some of the beautiful actresses from the Italian sword-and-sandal and vintage Euro horror movies I love.

After a friend got me over to You Tube this morning to check out a clip of actress Isabelle Corey in the French gangster movie Bob Le Flambeur, I found a montage of scenes from the career of Helga Liné, described on Wikipedia as a “German-born Portuguese-Spanish film actress and circus acrobat.” I’ve known her as the haughty beauty of two films: the 1963 epic Goliath Against the Tyrants of Babylon, and the 1963 Gothic spook show The Blanchville Monster. Helga sure was busy that year!

I found this great shot of Miss Liné in the first film at the outstanding sword-and-sandal site Peplum (one of the names for such films, referring to the material of the costumes):

Be sure to visit Peplum here.

Then, on “The Helga Line Appreciation Thread in Classic Italian Horror: Pre-1970 Forum” I found this perfect picture of Helga, complete with evil syringe, in her menacing role in The Blanchville Monster from 1963. It was posted by Eurotika1955 from a personal collection:

You can find more amazing Helga stuff at the forum here.

At You Tube at one time I located a montage of various scenes from her peplum movies, unfortunately no longer at the link I originally found; but this edited version of her stunningly photographed black-and-white horror show The Blanchville Monster is right here.

As I watched the various montages, I suddenly got inspired to take a few shots of my own, and I liked the one below in particular, which shows Helga as a haughty queen lording it over some gladiators in one of the various Spartacus sequels made in Italy. In the photo, the keys of my laptop looked to me like a horde of minions scraping and bowing before glorious Queen Helga!

Click on the picture to fully insert yourself under the spell of Helga Liné!

I hope you enjoy these pix and links to the wonderful Miss Liné, as I did, when you take a break from your daily routines! 😉