DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS (1954) **1/2 Roman carnival (catechism) of ethical ambiguities in the service of teleology and voyeurism. The self-righteous (audience) get to languish in the sweet stench of sin (hedonism), and the hero climbs out of it after reveling for awhile. Victor Mature abandons Christianity in a fit of petulance, indulges passions of the flesh with a priestess of Isis, and slays his tormentors in a skillfully choreographed homage to vengeance. The innocent fall, the righteous are humbled, carnal knowledge masquerades as eternal truth, and the unimaginatively sanctimonious were too excited about it all to step out for a popcorn refill. Mature and Susan Hayward can't deliver the pivotal scenes with the pathos they demand, but Ernest Borgnine and William Marshall are better. Jay Robinson is probably enough to inspire fetishism on the parts of the desperately degenerate, as Caligula no less. Delmer Daves directs towards Hollywood blockbuster, rather than religious epiphany, and the result is that it works better on both levels than you might think. I don't usually see that many bad people turning good at the end; but the hero stumbling before standing, the objectively quirky currency of metaphysics, the revered life of subjectivity within the superficial confines (towards death) of herd constraint, the ultimate satisfaction of the sacred within each of us as endowed or petitioned by faith, the happily ever after--yeah, that all has some resonance.
back to Brilliant Observations on 1776 Films home
go back home, or send me email
no more reviews! I want to buy your novel!