The Giant of Marathon

Philippides (Reeves), victor of the 490 BC Olympics, is proclaimed leader of the Athenian Sacred Guard and in due course defeats Darius the Persian at the Battle of Marathon. A well-plotted (in a bare-bones sort of way) and quite sprightly tale of double dealing, photographed by Mario Bava (who a year later launched his career as a cult horror director), with Fantoni as the heartless woman-killer Theocritus, and Rocca as the matronly sacrificial love interest. Pretty ordinary (not to say ludicrous), but some inventive and brutal underwater sequences.