A colorful story, set in Rome in the year 44 AD, about the love and political intrigues of the evil Empress Messalina, the wife of the Roman emperor Claudius (Marcello Giorda), and her eventual downfall. It begins when Claudius is elected emperor by the Praetorians after having murdered Caligula, and he makes Valeria Messalina, priestess of the temple of Vesta, his wife. With Messalina becoming empress, she will face a group of nobles from Silius, who do not admit her insatiable and irresistible manipulations and the dissolute life she leads. Messalina conspires in her husband's politics, but is seriously harmed by the actions of a centurion named Lucio Massimo (Spyros Focás), who was her ex-lover. The nobles of Silio (Arturo Dominici) commission one of the soldiers named Marcello to kill Messalina, but the appearance of Lucio Massimo will complicate things.
An ordinary peplum, in the fashion at the time that does not provide anything special, following the usual Roman incidents with betrayals, the usual dances, corruption, murders, persecutions of Christians, fights and final confrontations. Although it takes great liberty with actual historical events, the film presents the most famous woman in Roman history as a complex person, with deep and dark passions, who comes to an ignominious end through her excesses and badness. The film does not have a historical perspective, it simply deals with the betrayals and evil of Messalina without delving too deeply into the reality of the events. It stars the British and very beautiful Belinda Lee, an actress who starred in several historical epics such as The Venus of Cheronea, Herod the Great, The Shadow of the Guillotine, Lucrezia Borgia and Constantine the Great, sadly died very young due to a car accident . Along with her are some regular performers of the prolific Italian genres of the sixties and seventies: Peplum, Spaghetti Western, Giallo... such as: Giuliano Gemma, Spiros Focás, Arturo Dominici and Evelyn Stewart or Ida Galli.
Being uneven but professionally directed by Vittorio Cottafavi (1914-1998); He was a complete artist, painter and expert in Peplum, as he directed: ¨Conquest of Atlantis¨, ¨Legions of Cleopatra¨, ¨Mesallina¨ and ¨Gladiator Rebellion¨. He began his professional career in the film industry as a clapper. After progressing to writing film scripts and working as an assistant director with Alessandro Blasetti and Vittorio De Sica, he became a director in his own right in 1943. Many of his films have been lavishly produced, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, "sword" films. . -and sandal" or "Muscleman" epics, which deal with mythological themes involving the Roman Empire or Ancient Egypt. Since the mid-60s, Cottafavi has concentrated exclusively on directing television series and miniseries, under contract for RAI , many of them related to historical events or well-known figures such as Oliver Cromwell, Don Giovanni, Napoleone a Sant'Elena, Vita Di Dante and Christopher Columbus. Rating: 5.5, average but passable and acceptable.
