Film Review: Quo Vadis (1951)

Success in Hollywood is very fleeting. In the early 1950s, during what many considered to be Hollywood’s golden age, MGM, its most powerful and celebrated studio, which was delivering a series of popular and spectacular musicals, was actually on the verge of bankruptcy. Something very special was necessary for such a fate to be avoided, and that proved to be Quo Vadis, the 1951 biblical epic directed by Mervyn LeRoy, known as one of the most colossal, but also one of the most successful films of its time, that would later launch the trend of “larger-than-life” biblical and historical epics.

The film is based on the eponymous 1896 novel by Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz that had been adapted for four previous screen adaptations. The plot begins in Rome in 64 AD, when the Roman Empire is ruling most of the known world. Marcus Vinicius (played by Robert Taylor) is commander of the 14th Legion, which has spent three years fighting against the Britons and which is to take part in a grand triumphal procession. Vinicius’ uncle Petronius (played by Leo Genn) is a member of the inner circle at the court of Nero (played by Peter Ustinov), a young, spoiled, pompous and tyrannical emperor. Vinicius can expect many lucrative posts and similar rewards for his military victories, but instead of that he asks Nero to give him Lygia (played by Deborah Kerr), a beautiful barbarian princess who had been given as a hostage to Rome. He had seen and fallen in love with her while visiting the distinguished general Aulus Plautius (played by Felix Aylmer), who became Lygia’s adopted father.

Vinicius soon learns that Lygia, Plautius, and his wife Pomponia Graecina (played by Nora Swinburne) are members of the new sect known as “Christians”. Although at first sceptical towards the new faith, whose peace-loving teachings seem so alien to traditional Roman virtues, his love for Lygia, especially after it is requited, makes him sympathetic to her cause. At the same time, the power-mad Nero gets an insane idea to replace Rome with a new city that should be built from scratch and decides to start a massive fire. When the people react angrily, he decides to find a convenient scapegoat in the Christians, who are arrested and brought to the arena where they are put to death in the most cruel ways.

MGM had obtained the rights to a sound film adaptation of the novel from Sienkiewicz’s heirs more than a decade before. Enormous logistical and technical demands, as well as the ensuing Second World War, prevented Quo Vadis from being put into production until the early 1950s. It was nevertheless a very ambitious project and, even with the relatively cheap labour force and facilities of the famous Cinecittà studios in Rome, the budget rose to more than 7 million US$, making the film the most expensive in Hollywood’s history by that time. Producer Sam Zimbalist, on the other hand, could have expected a built-in audience for a film based on a popular novel and with an explicitly Christian stance. The main attraction was, however, the spectacle provided by massive sets and scenes featuring tens of thousands of extras.

Mervyn LeRoy, one of the most experienced and versatile directors of Classic Hollywood, handled the large resources well and created a number of well-made scenes, most notably those depicting the decadent life in Nero’s palace and the Christians being thrown to the lions in the arena. The spectacle was even better thanks to lush Technicolor, which was by that time becoming standard for such sorts of films. The widescreen format provided by CinemaScope only two years later soon made Quo Vadis look dated, but that didn’t happen before it scored more than 21 million US$ at the box office and became the biggest hit since Gone with the Wind.

However, once the viewer gets accustomed to such spectacle, some serious flaws of Quo Vadis become apparent. Some of them could be attributed to the literary source, which uses too much melodrama and a not always balanced mix of real history, apocryphal biblical stories and fiction. Dialogues at times look stale and preachy. Viewers who aren’t devout Christians might find some segments of the plot, at least those that don’t deal with Nero and his lunacy, a little boring. The soundtrack by Miklós Rózsa, while serviceable, isn’t particularly memorable or inspiring. But the worst flaw of Quo Vadis is the miscasting of Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr, talented actors who lack mutual chemistry and whose characters, although nominal protagonists, look bland.

It’s quite another story with Leo Genn as Petronius, a character who tries and tragically fails to serve as Nero’s voice of reason, ultimately becoming one of the most sympathetic figures in the story. But the best performance belongs to the young Peter Ustinov, who, apparently left to improvise by LeRoy, marvels at the opportunity to portray the infamous monarch with great energy and ingenuity. Ustinov earned a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his efforts, and he would later win an Oscar by appearing in similarly-themed Spartacus.

Quo Vadis received six Oscar nominations but received none of the actual awards. This surprising snub is actually quite deserving from today’s perspective, but LeRoy’s film nevertheless served its purpose not only by rescuing a major Hollywood studio but also by serving as inspiration for other “larger-than-life” historical epics that would become the norm in Hollywood in the next two decades.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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