No other movie genre featured as many exotically beautiful women as
the sinew & sandal genre. If you "like movies about gladiators"
then you might be watching them for the various queens, princesses,
high priestesses, and slave girls.
There was Sylva Koscina, Sylvia Lopez, Giana Maria Canale, and
Wandisa Guisa. Bella Cortez, Jose Greci, Moira Orfei, and her cousin
Liana Orfei. And of course there was the incomparable Chelo Alonso (1933-2019).
Born Isabella Apolonia Hernandez she joined Cuba's National Theatre
in Havana at 17. She would be dubbed the Cuban H-Bomb by the European
press when she became a featured performer at Paris' famed Follies
Bergere.
She would rise to movie stardom as a dancing girl in the movie
SHEBA AND THE GLADIATOR (1959) starring Anita Ekberg and Georges
Marchal. Oddly enough this was not a "gladiator movie". Not so oddly
La Alonso's dance scene steals the picture from star
Anita Ekberg.
Her best known films from the sinew & sandal genre were GOLIATH
AND THE BARBARIANS (1959), SON OF SAMSON (1960), and ATLAS IN THE
LAND OF THE CYCLOPS (1961). She would also appear with Steve Reeves in
the swashbuckler MORGAN THE PIRATE (1960).
All of these flicks save ATLAS IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS featured an
exotic dance number by La Alonso.
Many fan boys have imagined Chelo Alonso portraying La of Opar in a
Tarzan movie. But it was writer Frank Schildiner once suggested to me
that La Alonso might have made a good Belit in a movie adaptation of
Robert E. Howard's story QUEEN OF THE BLACK
COAST. Most likely with Steve Reeves playing Conan of Cimmeria.
While on the subject of exotic dancers enjoy the latest Ginger Snaps comic by the team of Dave Goode and Vance Capley.
We make comics!!! on lulu.com and IndyPlanet
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