I probably saw Quo Vadis upon its initial release, but I would have been only 6 or 7 years old at the time, and most likely would have fallen asleep throughout most of the first half of the film. I'd like to say that I was profoundly impressed with the first half of the film (or, the film in its entirety) this time, but I can't. Quo Vadis is the perfect example of big-budget Hollywood spectacles that are largely spectacle for spectacle's sake; a pro-Christian slant that would irritate many a viewer today; bad (really bad) acting; and costumes and color and corn that make one laugh at their outrageousness.
Previews for Quo Vadis promised nothing short of the Second Coming to audiences, as well as "the most colossal film you're likely to see in your lifetime" (actually, a reasonable facsimile of a quote from Look Magazine). And, for 1951 audiences, this was certainly the case. Here were 30,000 extras (really!) massive sets, opulent costumes, and spectacle on a level previously never seen, all filmed in glorious Technicolor (praised as if Technicolor had actually been invented for this film). Too bad the story that goes along with some pretty impressive stuff is so hopelessly corny and downright silly.
Robert Taylor stars and probably has more lines to speak in this film than most actors have had in their last 10 films. Man, this is a talky movie! Taylor's distinct American accent, when put up against the British accent of all other actors portraying Romans stands out like a sore thumb. (In Ben-Hur for example, Americans were cast as Jews and Brits were cast as Romans to avoid such clashes of accents.)
Taylor's character, Marcus Vinicius, is a Roman soldier returning to Rome after a campaign in Britain, who meets, and instantly falls in love with (oh, brother!) a decidedly beautiful (and ridiculously made up and coiffed) Deborah Kerr, portraying a former slave whise name is Lygia. While Kerr makes for a beautiful image on the non widescreen image, it's hard for audiences today to accept the amount of makeup, and careful attention to gorgeous costumes and hairdos that are entirely out of place, and likely, anachronisms.
While the Marcus/Lygia tale develops, we also witness the excessive zaniness of Peter Ustinov's portrayal of Nero. While praised at the time, and even nominated for an Academy Award, I found Ustinov's performance nothing short of laughable, if not downright ridiculous. So too are just about each and every one of his and his queen's costumes with their excessive embroidery of gold and vivid (again, Technicolor) costumes with colors that really don't go together very well. Quo Vadis pre-dated Cinemascope by about three years, so, since it couldn't boast being a widescreen epic (as The Robe, the first Cinemascope film could) it relied instead on its non-stop praise of Technicolor.
The first half of the film drags on for a couple of hours, filled with some scenes of truly brilliant staging (Marcus' entrance into Rome) and the always wonderful musical contributions by the late Miklos Rosza accompanying just about everything. The second half moves along at a far faster clip, and has all of the best elements of the whole work: Nero's burning of Rome (which actually surpasses the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind ), and the feeding of Christians to the lions, including some scenes which must have genuinely horrified viewers back then. And, along with its generous doses of Hollywood-inspried piety, lots of religious hokum too. One scene in particular stands out as really, really awful: as the apostle Peter (finely portrayed by the late Finley Curray) relates his experience with Jesus, a life-like portrayal of da Vinci's "Last Supper" appears on the screen, with all the actors in costumes the same color as those in da Vinci's painting, along with the wide-armed gestures that look downright ridiculous on film.
Still, from a historical perspective, Quo Vadis has some worth. Nothing's digital here - all the scenes with the "cast of thousands" are for real, as are most of the sets. Matte paintings are used extensively, sometimes in startling ways, and others where the results are simply fake and silly looking. Many biblical spectacles followed Quo Vadis ( Ben-Hur praised as the best of them), eventually losing favor to audiences in the 60's.
If you've never seen a Biblical spectacle, there are better choices than Quo Vadis Still, it was the first of many, and should be of interest to film buffs for its historical value.
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