Quo Vadis

Quo Vadis, based on the late nineteenth century novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz, has been filmed many times in many lands for the cinema and for television. It was done as a Broadway play at the turn of the last century. But this is the version that most people remember and talk about.

It's also the first of the big budget sand and scandal epics that the movies made to try and compete with that little home entertainment machine that was popping up in more and more homes. MGM built the magnificent sets the film was done on and sent Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr and the whole cast over to Italy to shoot it. Those sets later popped up in Ben-Hur, The Fall of the Roman Empire and dozens of Italian gladiator films. Supposedly somewhere in the cast of thousands both Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren appeared as extras. Spot them if you can.

Another extra was Lia DiLeo and gossip about her and Robert Taylor led to the break up of the Robert Taylor-Barbara Stanwyck marriage.

The story is about Robert Taylor as Marcus Vinicius, Roman soldier and his lust then love for Christian girl Lygia played by Deborah Kerr. Their story is set against the background of the early Christian church in Rome and the persecution of it by the Emperor Nero.

Taylor and Kerr are fine in the leads, but in this case the supporting cast really overshadowed the stars. Peter Ustinov as Nero and Leo Genn as Petronius were both nominated for Best Supporting Actor of 1951, but lost to Karl Malden in Streetcar Named Desire.

Peter Ustinov got a once in a lifetime part as Nero. It's the kind of role that one can overact outrageously and still convey all the sinister impulses that this villain possessed. Ustinov was compared with Charles Laughton as Nero in The Sign of the Cross and I wouldn't dare say who was better.

My favorite part in this film has always been Leo Genn as Gaius Petronius. He's the only actor in the film who's holding his own with Ustinov. He's a pretty smart guy this Petronius, keeping his place at the court by flattery and guile. It's a bitter pill for him to swallow when after Nero burns Rome, the Rome he loves and has dedicated his life to. He could have prevented it by taking a righteous stand against the tyrant. But instead he played the cynic once too often and decides what he deems to be the only course of action open to him.

Finlay Currie is a strong and hearty, but aged St. Peter. My conception of St. Peter has always been that of Finlay Currie and in his youth that of Howard Keel in The Big Fisherman. Peter's a hands on kind of pastor used to hard work. After all he was a fisherman in his younger days and that certainly is outdoor work.

Whether people are confirmed Christians or not will depend on how they take this film. We all can certainly admire the spectacle and the talent of the players. And nobody questions the atrocities committed by Emperor Nero against the early Christians.

But at one point after Taylor realizes his love for Kerr, he makes what I consider a quite reasonable offer to allow her to continue in her faith and he'll even put up whatever kind of chapel on the house grounds for that purpose. Not so says Kerr, it's going to be all or nothing. That all or nothing attitude today has got a few people upset with organized religion for various reasons. But that's in the distant future from the First Century AD.

During 63 a.d. a Roman official prefect named Marco Vinicio (Robert Taylor) returns from Gaul wars and goes home Petronius (Leo Genn and enamored the gorgeous slave played by Marina Berti ), adviser of emperor Nero (Peter Ustinov) . Vinicio confess him he has fallen in love from Ligia (Deborah Kerr) , a virginal and mysterious young whom has known in the Plautus's home (Felix Aylmer and wife Nora Swinburne) . Meantime , the Christians are accused by Nero (Peter Ustinov) , along with Poppea (Patricia Laffan) and Tijelinus (Ralph Truman) of burning the ancient Rome . Depraved emperor Nero wants to get rid the Christians followed by Apostle Peter (Finlay Currie) and Paul (Abraham Sofaer) and then orders burn on stakes and use them as meat for hungry lions . Vinicio helped by Ursus (Buddy Baer) risk their lives to save her .

This huge epic film gets lots of crowd scenarios, fabulous gowns, dramatic scenes and is realized on a giant scale , spectacular sequences and Christians' bloody martyrdom as lions attack in arena and cruel crucifixions . Originally cast in 1949 with Elizabeth Taylor as Lygia and Gregory Peck as Marcus Vinicius . But as the production changed hands the following year , the roles were recast with enjoyable Deborah Kerr and robust Robert Taylor . Among the many actresses who tried out for a role in the film : a pre-stardom Audrey Hepburn. Peter Ustinov's overwhelming hammy acting , he gives an immortal and unforgettable performance . Film debut of Bud Spencer , who plays one of the Emperor's guards and as extra appears Sofia Loren and her mother . The film was an epic colossal with big financial success , 32,000 costumes were used in the film ; besides , spectacularly and colorfully photographed by Robert Surtees and magnificent musical score by Myklos Rozsa . The movie was very well directed by Mervyn Leroy . The motion picture is the ultimate version of the classic novel by the Polish Henryk Sienkiewicz . Remade for television by Franco Rossi (1985) and inferior version (2001) by the Polish Jerzy Kawalerowicz .

Henryk Sienkiewicz was one of Poland's great historical novelists, and one of the first recipients of the Nobel Prize for literature (1905). It has only been in the last decade or so that translations of other novels by him have appeared in English, but his major work, QUO VADIS?, has been known since it appeared over a century ago. It was a study of the early days of the Christians in Rome, and their first persecution by the Emperor Nero (54 - 68 A.D.) It concentrates on the burning of Rome and the persecution of the Christians (including the death by crucifixion of St. Peter). So the background is identical to Cecil B. DeMille's THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. Inevitably comparisons between the two films, their plots, and the performances of the two Neros (Charles Laughton and Peter Ustinov) result.

But the two stories are not the same. Sienkiewicz threw in far more of the history of the Rome of that period than the author of the play THE SIGN OF THE CROSS did. And because of his deeply felt commitment to his faith, Sienkiewicz showed the destruction of Nero's rotten regime and the first triumph of Christianity. THE SIGN OF THE CROSS does not do that - my comment there was that DeMille never made such a pessimistic and tragic film in his career, with all the good people being destroyed and Nero (at that time) triumphant. This does not happen in QUO VADIS, where the corruption and incompetence of the regime finally loses the support of the people (and ... ironically worse ... the army!).

There is also the addition of the leading poet-courtier of the day, Petronius Arbiter. A man of wit and taste, Petronius was one of several figures of literary note in Nero's court, and one of several to meet tragedy by being near that egomaniac. The others were led by Nero's original chief minister Seneca, the stoic philosopher and dramatist. Seneca's nephew Lucan was also a leading figure in the court. Both men were eventually turned into foes of the regime, especially as Seneca fell from his ministerial position after the murder of Nero's mother Agrippina. Petronius managed to avoid the political conflict that involved the other two, but the Emperor's irrational jealousy helped link the three. Lucan wrote a savage epic poem against the Imperial family (PHARSALIA) which signaled his rejection of the regime. Lucan joined a conspiracy against Nero led by a Senator named Piso. It was discovered, and Lucan and Seneca implicated. Both were forced to commit suicide (by opening their veins). Tigellinus, Nero's leading adviser, insinuated that Petronius was involved too (he wasn't). Petronius also committed suicide the same way, but wrote a witty and accurate denunciation to Nero which was given to the Emperor after the writer's death.

Petronius' major surviving work, THE SATYRICON, was a wonderful look at the rot at the center of the regime of Nero. It (by the way) was turned into a film by Fellini in the late 1960s.

Leo Genn brought Petronius and his delicate wit and taste out in the film, and merited the Oscar nomination he got for this - his best remembered role (aside from Dr. "Kick" in THE SNAKE PIT). Ustinov brings a degree of frailty to Nero - an uncertainty as to the acceptance of his public persona. He flails about between seeking the approval of the artists like Petronius and those who manipulate the tyrant in him (Poppeia and Tigellinus). Despite his vicious evil one sympathizes with him - he is a sick man. And his reconstruction program (he burns down old Rome to create "Neropolis") is on par to that of another tyrant of more recent vintage, who planned to build a world capital called "Germania" over Berlin's bones. He too left many bones, but it is hard to consider him at all sympathetic.

As spectacle and history QUO VADIS? is quite rewarding. It may telescope the events of 64 - 68 A.D. (when Nero committed suicide with assistance), and avoid the three brief Emperors who ruled after Nero within the year (Galba, Otho, and Vitellius) before Vespasian came back from the war in Israel to take the throne for a decade - but it does show how Nero's regime collapsed. DeMille never tackled it. But despite those two omissions the film does do the period pretty well.

Robert Taylor is more effective as a military commander / hero than Fredric March had been in SIGN OF THE CROSS. Deborah Kerr is more believable as an early Christian convert. And Finley Currie is wonderful as Simon Peter - who realizes that he must die for the Lord that he once denied. His end is based on a legend that Peter was crucified upside down, supposedly at his request that he did not deserve to be crucified in the same way as the Lord he briefly failed. Altogether a superior religious - historic epic.

General Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor) returns to Rome after battle and falls in love with Lygia (Deborah Kerr), an adopted daughter of a fellow general, but effectively a hostage and considered a no no. When she is presented to him as a gift, things are further compounded by the fact that she is in secret a Christian. Enter Emperor Nero (Peter Ustinov) who orders that all Christians must be thrown to the lions, leaving Marcus with no option but to deny his Pretorian ways and to try and save Lygia and her family. Rome, will never be the same again.

A big, bold and lavish historical epic out of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that's directed by Mervyn LeRoy, shot in glorious Technicolor by Robert Surtees & William V. Skall and is scored by Miklós Rózsa. Joining the big hitters in the cast are Leo Genn, Finlay Currie, Felix Aylmer & Abraham Sofaer. While the adaptation of Henryk Sienkiewicz's novel is written by S. N. Behrman, Sonya Levien & John Lee Mahin. There's no denying that Quo Vadis, meaning "where are you going" and appertaining to the encounter between St Peter and Jesus Christ on the Appian Way, is a technical spectacle. It's also tough going for its over talky melodramatics during the first 90 minutes, but you just have to stay with it, once you are in, you are in for the long haul. A whole afternoon in my case!

For its time, this was the bigger than than biggest, a studios dream, the cast of thousands, the sets, the costumes and the gazillion speaking parts that make up the story. It's also a point where the historical epic became more than just entertainment and a reason to make money. No doubt about it, Quo Vadis is very pro Christian, it has something to say, even if ultimately it takes a long time to say it and is historically dubious. There's thought and intelligence within, with that, it pays to pay attention and sample the dialogue whilst feasting your eyes on the magnificence that surrounds the characters. Once the worthwhile action kicks in, it's no let down, the fights in the Coliseum, the burning of Rome (we can thank the great Anthony Mann for that one) and the dramatic climax, all make the time spent leading up to them more than worth it. The cast are mostly agreeable, Kerr is gorgeous as ever and Taylor is, ahem, straight as ever, while Ustinov goes full tilt campy loony. Genn steals the movie as Petronius while Patricia Laffan as Poppaea Sabina gives one of the most sensually minx like portrayals given in an historical epic.

Some may find the religiose aspects over bearing, but the spectacle does win out. Looking as gorgeous as ever now after being remastered, Quo Vadis is a must see for like minded historical epic fans. It's some way down the pecking order of the genre greats, but still a must see movie regardless. 7/10

A fellow IMDb-er from Poland, defending Henryk Sienkiewicz's monumental, Nobel Prize-winning novel (which I HAVE read, by the way) calls this M-G-M Technicolor spectacle "CRAP"!

Please! The novel is incredibly dense and detailed; possibly a lot truer to what was known in the early part of the twentieth century of the actual events of the time of its plot; with lots of references to the cruelty and luxury of Nero's Rome; frequent mentions of the pervasive nudity under all kinds of circumstances among the Romans of the time; and, given its length, a perhaps more respectful view of the emergence of Christianity at a time when its converts risked their very lives to admit their beliefs. There is no way that even a multi-part TV mini-(I mean, maxi-)series could come close to approximating the novel's overwhelming complexity.

But, as a piece of filmed entertainment, this cinema extravaganza is not at all worthy of being consigned to the proverbial garbage heap. The cast, yes, including Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr, but, especially the supporting actors (Peter Ustinov, of course; plus Leo Genn, in particular, as well as Patricia Laffan, Marina Berti, Finlay Currie, Felix Aylmer, Rosalie Crutchley, et al.) all take full advantage of a script that had many witty as well as dramatic moments and, for its day, a fairly reverent (though not historically accurate) rendering of Christianity's emergence in a hostile Roman world.

In addition its production values have never been surpassed; in fact, they've never been equalled. One understands how beleaguered those of Polish descent often must feel (I, for one, have never been a fan of so-called "Polish jokes."), but let's not set impossible standards for a translation of one of Poland's most memorable literary achievements! This production is an example of Hollywood marshalling some impressive resources, while avoiding more than a modicum of the cliches that can sabotage such a project. It may not honor its source as some might wish, but it's still a quite grand and opulently eye-filling way to enjoy close to three hours.