Helen of Troy

Come on, IMDb'ers! Get your stuff right. Warner Brothers was the studio and they usually forced their producer/directors around this period to use their own proprietary single-strip color process, rather than Technicolor, which by 1956 had already abandoned its own more expensive to use and cumbersome to handle three-strip process. Somehow Robert Wise and his technicians managed to get more variety and warmer tones while using Warnercolor in this film than what was usually achieved stateside on W.B.'s Burbank sound stages and on various U.S. locations. Maybe it was, as Franco Zeffirelli is fond of calling it, "the golden-ah light" of Italy. Anyway this film is quite an eye-filling visual achievement. And Max Steiner's score is one of his better ones, pumping up the spectacle aspect quite effectively.

A couple of trivia notes: The Walls of Troy set accidentally caught fire before the company was finished with it, but Wise and his technicians were on the spot and managed to get some usable footage out of that disaster. (I don't know if they had to reconstruct it or rewrite some scenes that were originally supposed to have taken place on its ramparts.) And TIME magazine in its review complained that Signorina Podesta's vaccination scar (and I think that of Monsieur Sernas as well) is clearly visible in a love scene. Without computers to fix such gaffes back then, and probably not noticing that little "oops!" until examining footage in a U.S. screening room when the company returned home for editing, the studio probably figured they'd just let it pass. But forty-foot wide CinemaScope screens were quite merciless when it came to audiences' perceptions of the obvious.

In comparing this version of Helen Of Troy with the more recent Troy it's quite the tossup. Both didn't quite live up to expectations, the casting in a few places doesn't quite work. There was also different emphasis placed on the classical figures in each film. This version also uses a cast of thousands and in the current version, computer graphics are used to show the mass armies of both sides.

I never understood why 20th Century Fox never thought to film this with Tyrone Power, the role of Paris seems like such a good fit for him. Jacques Sernas was adequate, but not more than that. Rosanna Podesta is one magnificent looking Helen in a role that asks nothing more than being the first celebrity romance in history.

I'd be hard pressed to choose between Peter O'Toole in Troy and Cedric Hardwicke. Each so well portrays the world weary and war weary Priam so well. Hecuba is reduced to a cipher in the current version. But Nora Swinburne is not just a magnificent queen, but a caring mother for her rambunctious brood of Trojan princes and one princess.

My favorite as he's likely to be in any film he's in is Stanley Baker. There is quite a difference between him and Brad Pitt. Brad was a reluctant warrior as in Homer's epic. But Achilles as Baker realizes him is just a warrior who likes battle with the zest of a warrior who knows the gods have given him near invincibility. Baker brings so much passion to anything he does, he usually blows me away with any performance.

Next to the stories of the Bible, Homer's epics are probably the most universally known tales and everyone is a critic. For me this Helen Of Troy is a good if not great retelling of the tale.

Of all the great stories handed down through the ages, few can equal Homer's Iliad - a towering epic of warrior heroes, squabbling gods, and anger that destroyed nations...

This is the source for Robert Wise's film... All the elements of a magnificent spectacle exist in Homer's work - a lavish and decadent court life, the tension of the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, the most beautiful woman in Greece, and a drama of love and seduction...

Thousands of weapons are used: spears, bows, arrows, body armor, helmets, shields, maces and ships of the period l200 B.C., plus a tremendous wooden horse...

Paris, on a diplomatic mission to Sparta to arrange peaceful trade, is washed up on the Spartan shore after being shipwrecked during a storm... He is helped by the lovely Helen who claims to be a handmaiden to the queen... She takes her leave, directing him to the court of King Menelaus... Paris is greeted and honored in a 'cesti' combat with Ajax... Secretly, however, Menelaus plots to kill his guest...

Helen warns Paris of the danger to his life and urges him to run away... Herself in danger for revealing the plot, she succumbs to Paris' pleadings to flee with him... The lovers make their way to Troy...

From that point the spectacular elements - the massing of the ships and men, and the battles outside the walls of Troy, take over...

Rossana Podesta - a natural brunette given a blonde wig and the classical Grecian look - plays Helen, the indirect cause of the Trojan War, but for Paris, she is the goddess of love and beauty, "Aphrodite."

Jacques Sernas plays Paris... His seduction of Helen and refusal to return her, started the Trojan War...

Robert Douglas is Agamemnon, the commander in chief of the Greek forces... He calls on the kings and princes to unite in a war of revenge against the Trojans... He was a very ambitious man, dreaming of Troy's treasures...

Stanley Baker is Achilles, the unbeatable warrior, the greatest and most tragic of the Greek heroes...

Harry Andrews is Hector, the eldest son of king Priam, and the husband of Andromache... He is the chief warrior of the Trojan army...

Niall MacGinnis is the furious Menelaus, King of Sparta, who calls on his brother Agamemnon to gather an army and avenge the mark of shame...

Torin Thatcher is Ulysses, king of Ithaca, the man of outstanding wisdom...

Sir Cedric Hardwicke is the powerless but kindly King of Troy...

Janette Scott is Cassandra, daughter of Priam, loved by the goddess Athena... With a great spirit of prophecy she warns her father to burn the wooden horse...

Robert Wise makes a brave attempt to marry the intimate with the spectacular - a difficult task - but "Helen of Troy" is an epic movie, a superior entertainment filmed in CinemaScope and Technicolor..

Spectacular and Hollywood style renditíon based on Troy war with splendid cast and breathtaking battle scenes.When París : Jacques Sernas escapes with Helen : Rosana Podesta there takes place the Troy war. Helen is the beautiful wife of Menelao , Sparta King, : Neal MacGuinnis, when she falls for París , son of Troy king Priamo : Cedric Hardwicke, both of them escape. This event lead to the Siege of Troy.Director Robert Wise picked two new Italian stars: Sernas and Podesta to play the íntimate lovers in this impressive as well as epic tale based on the known poem written by Homero: Iliada. Dealing with love , battles , Goddess : Aphrodita and Atenea , death and the motive led up to it . While tension among Greeks divide the camp giving hope the Trojan . As Greek warriors under command of Menelaus , Agamenon , Ulysses , and Achilles : Stanley Baker get to hide out in the Trojan horse when they take the Wooden Beast into the Troy city and they are successful.

This monumental and epic retelling contains a moving love story , Drama, tragic events , and overwhelming battles with a cast of thousands. After a hardworking filming the results were only fair and decent. The picture ignores true deeds for lavish and high budgeted effects, including a great number of extras and a lot of war machines.In the movie shows up numerous historical and mythological roles as Priamo: Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Hecuba well played by Nora Swinburne , Agamemmon performed by Robert Douglas , as Menelaus interpreted by Neal MacGuinnis , Ulysses : Torin Thatcher, Hector : Harry Andrews , Achilles: Stanley Baker , Cassandra : Janette Scott , Ajax : Maxwell Reed , Patroclus : Terence Longdon , among others.

This events about Troy war have been adapted on various films : Silent movie titled The Private life of Helen of Troy by Michael Curtiz 1927 with Maria Corda , Lewis Stone ; Italian versión 1962 by Giorgio Ferroni with Steve Reeves , Juliette Mayniel, Lidia Alfonsi, Mimmo Palmara; Italian recounting titled Fury of Achilles by Marino Girolami with Gordon Mitchell , Jacques Bergerac , Gloria Milland , Ennio Girolami and Troy by Wolfgang Petersen, with Brad Pitt, Diana Kruger, Rose Byrne , Orlando Bloom , Brian Cox. And a TV series 2003 by John Kent Harrison with Matthew Mardsen , Sienna Guilery, Rufus Sewell , Joe Montana,Daniel La Pine, James Callis , and Katie Blake as Cassandra.

HELEN OF TROY is a very respectable Hollywood sword and sandal effort from the 1950s, with a strong international cast and very good production values. Except ...

Why does every popular culture effort at retelling the Trojan War myth have to make Paris the hero? In the Illiad, by far the most significant and authoritative source of the story, at best shows Paris to be an ambiguous figure--the best looking man of his generation, but often a coward in battle. Helen expresses extraordinary contempt for him in one extended passage. In one or two brief sequences, Paris fights valiantly, but in his major appearance, his winner-take-all-and-Helen duel with Menaleus, after bragging and crowing about his prowess, he completely wimps out in the battle, and, once defeated, is transported by Aphrodite back to Troy to hide in his bedroom.

HELEN OF TROY is not the only effort to mis-read the Illiad into a Paris-and-Helen "runaway" love story. Perhaps in writing a commercial screenplay, that's what any writer would be forced to do. But that doesn't speak well for our popular culture, one that can't sustain the ambiguity and complexity of another culture--of 2700 years ago!

Still, the movie has its strong parts, particularly Stanley Baker as Achilles. Watch for Brigitte Bardot in an early, pre-star role as Helen's handmaiden.