Agi Murad il diavolo bianco Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei
HE FILMING OF Ercole e la regina di Lidia signalled a new era in Ital- ian film production, as Steve Reeves himself noticed early in the shooting. “Just after I arrived in Italy to begin filming Her- cules Unchained, we began noticing other crews like ours, two and three beaches down from us, setting up cameras and filming Her- cules films just like ours,” he told his biog- rapher, Chris LeClaire. “It was unbelievable. They were using the same costumes, plots, and even [the same] ideas as Francisci. I guess it was like anything else in life: once someone gets a great idea, everyone wants in on it.”1
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As the official sequel to Pietro Francisci’s hit went into production, the race was on— among other hopeful projects—to beat the se- quel into the theaters the following summer. The need to work quickly may well have been the reason why Francisci had given his cam- eraman so much creative leverage with the sequel: to ensure its timely release. Certainly the Hercules phenomenon also
increased the demand for Mario Bava’s ser- vices, and while Riccardo Freda was setting up his next production (which would also prove to be Steve Reeves’ first post-Hercules movie), the cameraman kept himself busy with uncredited work.
