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Maciste

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Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste.
Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste.

Maciste or Machiste (IPA [mɑˈtʃisteɪ]) is one of the oldest recurring characters in cinema. He cuts a heroic figure throughout the history of the cinema of Italy, even if the movies that featured him were usually of poor artistic quality. He is usually depicted as a Hercules-like figure, utilizing his massive strength to achieve heroic feats that ordinary man cannot.

The origin of the name is a bit of a mystery. There was no Maciste in Greek mythology or history. The word machiste, however, means "macho man" or "mâle chauviniste" in French. The name could also be an Italian adaptation of Doric Greek Μακιστος Makistos, literally "tallest" or "greatest". According to William Smith's A Dictionary of Greek and Roman mythology, Macistus (=Μακιστος) was "A surname of Heracles, who had a temple in the neighbourhood of the town of Macistus in Triphylia." A related name is Mecisteus (Μηκιστευς), used of two different characters in mythology and also as a surname of Heracles. (In the first of the 1960's films, Maciste tells another character in the film that his name means "of the rock", and a later film, "Valley of the Thundering Echo", implies that Maciste magically materializes from out of the Earth itself when his abilities are needed.)

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Cabiria

Maciste made his debut in the 1914 Italian silent movie classic Cabiria. Maciste first appeared on the screen in the same year that Tarzan made his début in print. Including this first one, there have been at least 50 movies featuring Maciste, 25 of them starring Batolomeo Pagano, who played Maciste in Cabiria. This 1914 silent film was a story about a slave who was involved in the rescue of a Roman princess from an evil Carthaginian king who plotted to sacrifice her to the cruel god Moloch. The film was based very loosely on Salammbo, a historical novel by Gustave Flaubert, and had a plot and screenplay by Gabriele d'Annunzio.

Maciste's debut set the tone for his later adventures. Typical plots involve tyrannical rulers who practice vile magical rituals or worship evil gods. Typically, the young lady who is the love interest runs afoul of the evil ruler. Maciste is a super-strong guy who must rescue her. There is often a rightful king out there somewhere who wants to overthrow the evil usurper. There is an obligatory belly dance scene. There is often an evil queen who has carnal designs on the hero. These films, then, could be set in settings from Mongolia to Peru, from Egypt to the Roman Empire. His life story, or his origin in ancient Carthage, did not prevent him from appearing in any setting from classical antiquity or modern times.

Bartolomeo Pagano's Maciste films

As a character, Maciste had two distinct moments in the spotlight. The first was in the Italian silent movie period, in which the original Maciste from Cabiria, the muscular actor Bartolomeo Pagano, starred in a series of at least fifteen sequels over the period from 1915 through 1926.

The Pagano Maciste films established the character as someone who could appear at any place and at any time. Some of the earlier ones, made during World War I, had the distinct flavour of propaganda, and cast the hero in the role of a soldier. Later films in the series return to fantasy, but the fantasy was not always mythological. Maciste appears as an Olympic athlete, in contemporary settings, or in the afterlife. His character and his plots remained consistent in whatever setting; he was a populist Hercules, using his physical prowess to overcome the evil ruses of effete aristocrats and authority figures.

Bodybuilder Mark Forest played Maciste in this 1961 film.
Enlarge
Bodybuilder Mark Forest played Maciste in this 1961 film.

Revival of the 1960s

The character was revived in the 1960s. In 1958, Steve Reeves' Hercules, an Italian production, created a minor boom in Italian dramas featuring American bodybuilders in vaguely mythological or classical historical subjects. Maciste was the hero in 25 of these films. Other films starred such heroes as Ursus, Samson, Hercules and Goliath. Maciste was never given an origin, and the source of his mighty powers was never revealed. Nor was he confined to one specific time period/setting since the films jumped around from Biblical times to ancient Rome to the 1600's, and Maciste would just appear in whatever century he was needed, with no logical explanation really. This sword and sandal fad continued for about seven years, until the new fad for spaghetti Westerns took over the attention of the Italian cinema industry. The name Maciste was not in the title of the English versions of most of these films: when these films were imported into the USA and dubbed in English, the hero's name was often changed to Hercules, Samson, Goliath, Atlas, or Colossus, because the name of Maciste was not widely recognised in the USA. 
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A lot of Italian sword and sandal films were not theatrically released in the USA; they were premiered on American Television in a syndication package called The Sons of Hercules, usually broadcast on Saturday afternoons. Best remembered for its stirring title song - hear it once and it will never get out of your head - films originally featuring Maciste were dubbed into a variety of different "Sons of Hercules" pictures, with stock narration at the opening attempting to tie the film's lead character in to Hercules any way they could. A number of Italian musclemen played Maciste in the 1960's films, but Mark Forest was the actor who played Maciste the most (7 times). Other actors included Gordon Scott, Gordon Mitchell, Reg Lewis, Kirk Morris, Samson Burke, Alan Steel, Richard Lloyd, Renato Rossini and Frank Gordon.

Many of these films are available from [Sinister Cinema].

For more info, go to http://www.briansdriveintheater.com/hercules.html

In comic books

In the 1970s, Maciste was introduced to another American audience by being made a recurring character (under the spelling "Machiste") in DC Comics' Warlord sword and sorcery comic. In this version, the character was a gladiator of African appearance. This character was not related to the Italian film character.

Influence of Maciste

Partial filmography

The Silent Era

Silent Maciste films starring Bartolomeo Pagano include:

-- 17:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The 1960's sword-and-sandal era

There were a total of 25 Maciste films from the 1960s sword-and-sandal revival. The first title listed for each film is the film's original Italian title along with its translation, while the U.S. release title follows in parentheses (note how many times Maciste's name in the Italian title is altered to a totally different character's name in the American release titles):

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
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