QUO VADIS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 730, 10 July 1953, Page 16

QUO VADIS

(M.GM.)

HERE is something anachronistic in this mammoth, tasteless extravaganza about the decline and approaching fall of the Roman Empire. Thirty or 40 years ago, when the original version of Quo Vadis appeared, based on Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel, film producers might have had the excuse that they knew no better. But today we expect a little quality as well as size, and this film is short on quality. All that most of us remember of the Emperor Nero is that he fiddled while Rome burnt. Quo Vadis not only shows him plucking at his lyre and singing over the rooftops of the burning city, but explains why Rome was set on fire (at his orders) and how he later satisfied the people’s desire for vengeance by slaughtering all the Christians he could lay hands on. Since the film runs for over.two and a half hours there is a little more to it than this, but not much. There is a good deal of stilted

dialogue between Marcus _ Vinicius (Robert Taylor) and Lygia (Deborah Kerr), in which she tries to persuade him to give up his false gods for Christianity, and to convince him that killing is sinful and owning slaves undemocratic. 3 The real emphasis of the story, however, is on the wicked life and corrupt behaviour of Nero and his court. Here the film is lavish, colourful, and occasionally funny. The producer, Sam Zimbalist, and the director, Mervyn Leroy have excelled themselves in showing the corruption which results from absolute power, and Peter Ustinov, as the powercrazed dictator, gives the best performance in the film. His wild-eyed ranting makes Nero appear a ludicrous but dangerous madman, and this treatment is amusing enough to form a lively contrast with the muscle-bound banality of much of the rest of the film. He is ably assisted by Leo Genn in the role of Petronius, the cynical, witty confidant who eventually commits suicide in selfdisgust, and Patricia Laffan as Nero’s malicious wife, Poppaea. Nevertheless, the film stands or falls on its spectacle, and in such scenes as

the triumphal march-past of the legions or the exodus of the terrified mobs from the burning city, the camerawork and handling of vast crowds are highly competent. The most spectacular scenes however, such as those where the Christians are thrown to the lions or burnt alive on fiery crosses in the arena of the Colliseum, are the most tasteless. The best sequence, and one of the few where any genuine emotion is aroused, is the second to last, in which the giant Ursus (Buddy Baer) wrestles with a bull-in the arena and breaks its neck. thus saving the life of Lygia, who had ‘been tied to a stake near by. The Roman soldiers, led by Marcus Vinicius, choose this moment to stage a political revolt, and Nero commits suicide. The Christian saints are not forgotten, and Finlay Currie is impressive A TT A ET

with white beard and shepherd’s crook as the Apostle Peter. We are reminded. by brief flashbacks of Christ carrying. His Cross to Calvary and of the Last Supper, that the date of the events is only A.D. 64. But all this can’t obscure the fact that the film’s ostensible object, to show the triumph of Christian purity and spiritual power over Roman militarism, has been obscured through the greater dramatic interest of the latter. As an historical mock-up of the days when Christianity was just beginning, Quo Vadis is immense but often dull, Its saving graces are more or less accidental. The actors try hard to get some real feeling into their .lines, but the artificiality of the script generally defeats them.