Swords and Sandals

This posts first memory is not mine. I am told that almost every Sunday through my husband's first year at university, he and his mates would congregate in what he called "couch stadium", a living room that had no less than 15 couches and most importantly the television and vcr, with a bucket of KFC for the weekly screening of Braveheart while they nursed their hangovers. It is easily my husband's favourite film of all time and having seen it myself, I too think it is pretty good.

For me, swords and sandals films remind me of my latin teacher in years 7 and 8. She was incredibly passionate about teaching Latin and wanted us to appreciate what life would have been like in Ancient Rome. Every so often she would subject us to snippets of films like Spartacus, Clash of the Titans and Ben-Hur. As students, I believe her passion for latin was matched equally with our preference for watching films instead of reading text books and learning verb conjugations and so we convinced her towards the end of the year to allow us to watch a couple of these films all the way through. Thus I saw Clash of the Titans starring Laurence Olivier for the first time.

Within Swords and Sandals, at least for me, there are three distinct categories:

1. Those related to medieval England - for example, Braveheart, Excalibur, Ladyhawke, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc and A Knight's Tale

2. Those tied to Ancient Rome - for example, Gladiator, Clash of the Titans, Spartacus, Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, Clash of the Titans (Wothington version) and Troy

3. Those that feature fencing over broadswords: The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Princess Bride, The Count of Monte Christo, The Man In the Iron Mask, The Legend of Zorro and The Mask of Zorro.

I am not including the Samurai films in this category as they will form the subject of a future post.

I know that I haven't mentioned all the films in this category that are worth watching. I have really only included my favourites and so today's post is a short one.