With Fire and Sword is a comprehensive study of the English-dubbed Italian spectacles produced in the 1960s which are often described as "beefcake" and "sword'n'sandal" epics. Termed respectably peplum by the many French critics who thought highly of the genre, such films as Hercules and Goliath and the Barbarians held a fascination for American movie and television audiences at a time of social and political turmoil. Using myth criticism to extract value in the films, the book first presents a descriptive study of the genre by defining its characteristics before analyzing its motifs,...