Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Nero?

 

In other Covid void filling news I have also recently been watching "Quo Vadis" … after I realised the other day that it was actually directed by Mervyn LeRoy who, of course, also directed Little Caesar … famous (to those of a certain age before black and white films became verboten or designated to Talking Pictures TV) for its memorable last line "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?"   As a bit of an in-joke in Quo Vadis Peter Ustinov’s Caesar Nero expires with a very similar line “Is this the end of Nero?”.  Credit where its due I would not have spotted this without the Blu Ray commentary by film historian F. X. Freeney.

Polish Nobel Laureate author Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel about Nero and the great fire of Rome had already been filmed 3 times before this but the sheer scale of this 1951 production is epic.  There really are scenes with 5000 extras and even more fake extras than that created by revolving coloured disk and lights behind a matt painting to give the illusion of vast crowds in the Colosseum. 

The main plot of the film is a largely dreary love story between Christian ex-slave Lygia (Deborah Kerr) and Robert Taylor’s pompous Marcus Vinicius but it seems all an excuse to let Peter Ustinov play Nero as completely bonkers yet deadly dangerous.  The studio may have attempted to film this piece of Catholic propaganda from an agnostic viewpoint but there’s no doubt the novel it comes from is blatant propaganda for the RCC.  I mean, it has got the first Pope in...   

It’s curious to see Finlay Currie playing the gentle “fisher of men” Peter given his previous reputation for gruff roles – the most memorable of which is probably as Magwitch in David Lean’s Great Expectations – but he has the beard for it.   The film also reminded one how forgotten the Acts of the Apostles now are … and suddenly from on high I heard the voice of Uncle Mort remarking how he liked a good image of Paul of Tarsus. 

You have to wonder if anyone would get away with making such a pro-religious film today… Well, Mel Gibson did (adapting the visions of a nun and filming at the same stuidos) but the less said about that ... Interestingly, when Jesus does appear in flashback he’s filmed from behind just as in Ben Hur and the many other Biblical/Roman epic sagas this film revived.   

Mervyn Le Roy was a studio director who’d more or less just been told to go away and make the film so he sought advice from Cecil B. DeMille about how to handle the vast crowd scenes ....  Asking DeMille what had attracted him to Biblical epics he got the reply “2000 years of free publicity.”

The stand out characters in the film are Peter Ustinov’s Nero whose quest to become the greatest artist leads him to start the great fire of Rome and his courtier and nemesis Petronius played superbly by Leo Genn who simultaneously flatters and ridicules his master until it all goes sour and he is instructed to do himself in.  His lines are very acerbic ... as you would expect from the author of Satyricon.   

Satyricon its self was eventually made into a film by Fellini and filmed at the same vast Cinecittà Studios in Italy – a relic of Mussolini’s ventures into the film Industry...   Unfortunately for Mussolini although he built a huge massive studio in the 30s he was even then so unpopular internationally that no one in Hollywood would work with him except Hal Roach the producer of the Laurel and Hardy films.   

This actually caused MGM to dump Hal Roach which is why the last Hal Roach films are produced by United Artists.  That’s another fine mess he got them into.  It sure is.  Sadly there was never a Laurel and Hardy and Mussolini crossover – probably because Chaplin was already working on the Great Dictator…

Anyway I digress.  The novel/film take quite a few historical liberties but actually the story is quite good so who cares... and ... The scale of this film (which cost me £1 on ebay) is so impressive.  In the final scenes although some stunt men were used six foot five boxer “Buddy Baer” really is wrestling a live bull and ended up quite badly injured...

There are lots of lions and tigers too although Mervyn Le Roy complained that they really didn’t like the heat and any time he tried to herd them into the arena they’d just run back into the shade.  In the end he concluded it was highly unlikely that any lions would have eaten any Christians at all ever in reality as they’re basically nocturnal creatures… 

...not that I read any of this up it's all in F. X. Freeney's incisive commentary which is so much better than listening to a lot of actors waffling ... for obvious reasons most of the cast are now unavailable to waffle.