Astinkincold

 

I haven’t really written a proper blog entry for some time. 

I’d like to pretend this was because I have been too busy but largely it’s because like everyone else locked down I’ve been watching endless old television.  One day Ava and I watched the whole of the 1953 Biblical epic “The Robe” – the first cinemascope film.  

 It looked very good on my HD TV although the sets and matt paintings are more obviously artificial now than they would have been in the 50s.  Was quite good fun in a laid back way …restful to watch.  It treads similar ground to 1951’s Quo Vadis … although this time the antagonist is the much more sinister Caligula played with sadistic relish by Jay Robinson who does a wonderful turn. 

Indeed, so good was Jay Robinson’s performance that he generated a sequel for himself the now forgotten Demetrius and the Gladiators which was actually the highest grossing film of 1954.   

Spoiler – it’s 67 years old so allow it! – The Robe ends with Richard Burton’s Marcellus Gallio and Jean Simmons’s Diana walking towards the camera in the certain knowledge that they are to become Christian martyrs as Jay Robinson rants on... 

... and one wonders in a world which increasingly doesn’t believe in God if such and ending would be acceptable today or, even if it was, whether the audience would think it noble or just plain daft.

For some reason after Pear Shaped last week I found myself discussing the 1979 Caligula film which was arguably as notorious as the titular character himself due to Guccione and Giancarlo Lui secretly filming and cutting hardcore sex scenes into the final cut.  By this time the need for a religious subtext/fig leaf to/for the Roman debauchery and violence had been dispensed with.  But that’s another story … https://nymag.com/nymetro/movies/features/1407/ ...and a very long legal argument.

Today being Easter Monday I heard my neighbour’s television playing some biblical epic.  So I switched on my telly to drown his out and found Carry on Cleo was on with Kenneth Williams Julius Caesar bemoaning that he had succumbed to a local disease known as “astinkincold”. The jokes in these films are still corny but you have to admire sometimes the rate at which they pump them on the screen.  Hail - snow, rain, thunder, lighting - the lot!

Carry on Cleo was, of course, made on the Pinewood sets of 1963’s Cleopatra (also starring Richard Burton) which almost bankrupt 20th Century Fox due to disastrous logistics.  Although sets were built at Pinewood the English weather resulted in Elizabeth Taylor also developing “astinkincold” which later developed into nearly fatal pneumonia.  The sets also didn't withstand the British weather well so Cleopatra’s sets had to be completely rebuilt in Rome and all the British costumes and props were left for the Carry On team to play with. 

As with Carry on Spying the producers also got into trouble because the poster they envisaged for the film was near identical to the film it was parodying.   

Anyway there are entire documentaries made about the fiscal disaster that was Cleopatra – despite massive ticket sales so much money had been spent that it took until the sale of the TV rights in 1966 for the film to break even.   

Then suddenly everybody in Hollywood lost interest in Biblical/Roman epics for some reason … until Gladiator ... as it turned out the answer to Cecil B. DeMille's question "Why waste 2000 years of free publicity?" was "Because eventually the films get so big you run out of money."

Here endeth the financial lessons about the economics of Biblical/Roman epics.