Demetrius and the Gladiators

Talk about guilty pleasures. I saw this film for the first time when I was about 8-years old.

Back in those days you really only saw movies once - with mum and dad at the local cinema on Friday night. But my memory wrapped around this film almost as if I had a rewind button inside my head. It was one of those big-screen epics that made an impression on me.

With your Roman Empire movies, your best bet is to set the story in the reign of one of the three mad emperors - Nero is tops, but Caligula and Commodus are the next best thing. Someone like Augustus with his stable, 40-year reign is just a little too sedate when it comes to drama - a bit like the Eisenhower era.

Set in Rome during the reign of Caligula, all Demetrius (Victor Mature) wants to do is hand over the robe of Jesus to Peter (Michael Rennie), and lead a quiet life as a potter. Instead he has his faith shaken, and ends up in the arena where he dispatches many opponents and a streak of tigers. Along the way his most dangerous enemy turns out to be Messalina (Susan Hayward), the wife of Caligula's uncle Claudius. It takes Peter and a good buddy from the arena, Glycon (William Marshall), to guide him back to the light.

Well that's the story; the script is there to keep the spectacular arena scenes apart, and clear the set for Jay Robinson's viperish and eye-poppingly campy interpretation of Caligula. Despite tigers, dancing girls, oiled muscles, nets, tridents and short swords, the movie would have been pretty heavy going without Jay.

Victor Mature is on screen for just about the whole movie and for the most part is either angry or anguished. I've always thought he was pretty good for a guy who once told a club, which did not accept actors as members, that he wasn't an actor and he had the reviews to prove it.

One actor who was perfect in his role was Richard Egan. He plays Dardanius, a gladiator with attitude, and he looks the part with more muscles and teeth than Burt Lancaster.

Susan Hayward gave Messalina some of the same medicine Jay Robinson gave Caligula; together they keep the movie from getting too serious. I love the way Messalina does a complete turnaround right at the end to wrap the whole thing up in about two minutes flat.

Debra Paget is beautiful. Michael Rennie has gravitas and William Marshall is imposing - two great voices in the one movie.

Although technical aspects weren't things I noticed much back in the 50's, I can now appreciate how Franz Waxman's score gave the film spirituality and depth. Waxman was a composer who contributed intelligent scores to every film he did without repeating himself.

I must admit I still have a soft spot for this film; the arena scenes alone are worth the price of admission.

Described by George MacDonald Fraser as "(r)ipe melodrama, but not bad history", 'Demetrius and the Gladiators' manages to be that rarest thing: a sequel that improves upon the original. Returning from 'The Robe' is writer Philip Dunne (who provides a script according to Fraser "well above par for this kind of film") as well as composer Franz Waxman and cameraman Milton Krasner.

In the title role Victor Mature is upped to star billing, with Jay Robinson's very mad Caligula ("why should I suffer death like any plebeian?") and Michael Rennie as St. Peter returning from the earlier film. New additions to the cast include Barry Jones, who gives the thing gravitas as Claudius, and Ernest Borgnine and black American actor William Marshall in dignified supporting roles. (It also has a strong female contingent led by Susan Hayward's haughty, flame-haired Messalina who boasts that "my claws are sharper than the tiger's"; with Anne Bancroft in a small part and even an unbilled Julie Newmar shaking those hips as a dancing girl.)

The most decisive piece of casting, however, is director Delmer Daves, who just rolls up his sleeves and gets stuck into delivering all this nonsense with gusto.

Filmed at almost the same time, this film was a fitting sequel to "The Robe," considering it did not have the star power of the earlier film. None the less it loses some of the reverence of the first film, as Demetrius, so passionate a Christian in the first film, seems to give in and give up on it all too quickly in this one. The tie-in of the final scene from "The Robe" as the opening scene to this movie was a good advertising ploy, and the musical score of Franz Waxman melded well with the earlier Newman themes. The powerful insanity of Caligula is once again handled well by Jay Robinson, who brought the character vividly to life, as I remember from my Roman History studies. If the Rome of those days was as charming as depicted in these films, I would not have minded living there and then.

The performances of the cast, especially the minor characters, was excellent, although Mature was still awfully stiff in his performance. But a good sequel over all.

Once you have seen this movie you will never ever forget Jay Robinson's performance as deranged but cunning Caligula.Is it great acting or just one of the greatest slices of ham ever put on film?I don't know but it proves the maxim that one actor can make a basically routine movie into a personal favourite."Demetrius" is in some ways superior to its predecessor "The Robe" -it lacks the ponderous religiosity,theres more action,and Caligula moves into centre stage.

Demetrius and the Gladiators is a sequel to The Robe. It's directed by Delmer Daves and stars Victor Mature as Demetrius, a Christian slave made to fight in the Roman arena as a gladiator (and ultimately entering into a bigger fight, that of faith), and Susan Hayward as Messalina. Filling out the support cast are Ernest Borgnine, William Marshall, Michael Rennie, and Jay Robinson as the maniacal emperor Caligula. The screenplay is from Philip Dunne (How Green Was My Valley/The Agony and the Ecstasy) and cinematography comes courtesy of Milton R. Krasner (Academy Award winner Best Colour Cinematography for Three Coins in the Fountain 1955).

Following straight on from The Robe, Demetrius and the Gladiators is a safe and enjoyable Biblical picture that doesn't outstay its welcome. Running at just over 100 minutes, the film is far from being epic in its telling. However, and without cramming in, it does contain all the necessary ingredients to make up a sweaty sword and sandals pie. Filmed in CinemaScope it has a persecuted hero, a bonkers villain, a sexy babe, huge sets, colourful costumes and fights, lots of fights. Thankfully the serious dialogue is mostly kept brief, as there a few things worse in this genre of film than bloated discourse on religious beliefs and political dalliances. Just get in there, let us know what is going on, and move on to the next chapter of the story. This is something that Daves' film does very well, it has an eagerness to entertain with dots of gusto and sexual swagger. The acting is mixed, Mature is solid without ever really convincing as the heroic figure of Demetrius, Hayward and Robinson are camping it up and thus entertain royally, while Borgnine and Rennie earn their respective pay.

Very much like another Phillip Dunne screenplay genre piece, David And Bathsheba, this one is often overlooked or forgotten in discussion about the sword & sandals genre. That both films are not in the same league as the likes of Ben-Hur and Spartacus is a given, but both have much to offer the discerning cinephile. So this one is recommended Sunday afternoon fare with a flagon of claret and a roast ox dinner. 7/10