Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

HotToastyRag The irony of The Fall of the Roman Empire is that no one wanted to be in it. Kirk Douglas turned it down for $1.5 million, an incredible offer in 1964! If you watch the three-hour movie, you'll understand why. Kirk Douglas was able to recognize a terrible script when he read one. Ben Barzman, Basilio Franchina, and Philip Yordan's script is so bad, it's hard to believe through the dozens of drafts and rewrites all film scripts must endure, no one could have improved it before the actors started speaking. For example, Stephen Boyd sees Sophia Loren after a long absence and tells he she's beautiful. "Beautiful?" she repeats. "What . . . does that mean?" As another example, in one of the plentiful battle scenes, Stephen tries to convince everyone to stop fighting, but the angry mob of bad guys won't listen. "Let us die killing them!" one extra shouts. The dialogue is so stilted and mostly unnecessary, that even when the tedious fight scenes are over, you almost long for them to return. In a film that could have easily been an hour shorter, you'd think I'd be grateful to have three hours to stare at Stephen Boyd's handsome face. As much as I love him, and as beautiful as Sophia Loren is, Christopher Plummer ruins the movie-with help from the script and the ridiculous rip-offs from Ben-Hur. In the beginning of the film when Chris and Stephen are reunited after years of being apart, they embrace and drink a toast with their arms entwined. I realize that was a Roman custom, but since the scene was so similar to Ben-Hur, it's hard to take it seriously. It's the same with the chariot race, in which Chris-the Messala to Stephen's Ben-Hur-tries to hook his wheel under Stephen's to break his chariot. When that doesn't work, he actually starts whipping him; sound familiar? Unfortunately, even if you've never seen Ben-Hur and could watch this movie with fresh eyes, Christopher Plummer still ruins the movie. He speaks nearly every line with a sing-song lilt, and he prances around as if he was a stereotypical French fashion designer, instead of a Roman leader. His performance is so horrible, it's shocking that he had a career afterwards, let alone had to be coerced into taking the role of Captain Von Trapp the very next year.Dimitri Tiomkin's score earned an Oscar nod, and when you listen to the soundtrack, it sounds very pretty, exciting, and Roman. Hearing it while watching the film feels a little incongruous. Dimitri may have come up with a pretty theme, but he probably wasn't watching the movie while he wrote it. Music buffs might not want to sit through the entire movie, and despite the supporting cast including Alec Guinness, James Mason, Omar Sharif, Mel Ferrer, John Ireland, Anthony Quayle, and Finlay Currie, movie buffs might want to either.

Hoagy27 Great sets! Particularly "Fort Apache, the Rhine" in the first hour. The Barbarian village toward the end is good too. By far the best work by the team that brought you "El Cid" and "55 Days at Peking".But with Anthony Mann at the helm & Yakima Canute leading the second unit, it seems more like a western with chariots soon beginning to look like buckboards and the Roman Legions morphing into the US Cavalry. By the time the Romans take on the Persians one almost expects the Magnificent Seven to come riding through.Findlay Curry gets a single scene where he uses his stentorian voice to deliver the "author's message". There's also a nice scene in which Sofia Lauren is followed through the streets of a partying Rome by Zardoz. All else, cinematography, casting, costumes, stunts, writing etc. are mundane to the point of tedium. Tiomkin's music, despite being Oscar nominated, is loud and annoying and includes such inappropriate instruments as an electric harpsichord (enjoying a pop vogue in the 60s) and a bugle call during a cavalry charge.About the only thing historically accurate here aside from some of the sets is that, like the fall of Rome, this movie goes on and on. I never realized that every barbarian had long red hair.

tieman64 "The Americans have always depicted the West in extremely romantic terms - with the horse that runs to his master's whistle. They have never treated the West seriously, just as we have never treated ancient Rome seriously. Perhaps the most serious debate on the subject was made by Kubrick in the film "Spartacus"; the other films have always been cardboard fables. It was this superficiality that struck and interested me." – Sergio Leone I wouldn't call Kubrick's "Spartacus" a "serious debate" (Kubrick disowned the film precisely because it lacks complexity), but there is a sense that epics of yesteryear, despite their flaws, nevertheless possess an intelligence which modern epics lack. Think, for example, Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia", Ray's "55 Days in Peking", Houston's "The Man Who Would be King", Kubrick's "Spartacus" and even lesser films like "Viva Zapata", "Ben Hur" and "El Cid". Not to mention those unconventional epics by guys like Visconti, Welles, Leone, Kubrick, Kurosawa, Jancso: "Ran", "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Satyricon", "Chimes at Midnight", "Red and White", "Kagemusha", "The Leopard", "Duck You Sucker" etc.Are there any epics today that match this stuff. "Troy"? "Alexander"? "Kingdom of Heaven"? "Gladiator"? "Lord of the Rings"? "The Last Samurai"? "Avatar"? I don't think so. Despite advances in technology and photography, these films are content to latch onto epically stupid and derivative screenplays.Anthony Mann's "The Fall Of The Roman Empire" is at times a clunky film, but it nevertheless possess a certain substance which modern fare (and imitative stuff like "Gladiator") lacks. The film opens with Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his slave Timonides philosophising about pleasure and pain, Aurelius eventually confessing that he had a childhood anxiety in which he feared that the sun might never rise. This tone – the feeling that all life exists on that thin boundary between day and night, between existence and non-existence – permeates the entire film.We're then introduced to several other characters. There's Lucilla (Sophia Loren), the melancholy daughter of the Emperor, who both idolises her father and hates her mother's constant schemes, plots and infidelities. She also hates the fact that she has to, for political reasons, marry the King of Armenia in order to secure an ally on Rome's eastern front. Much scheming then follows, in which cunning politicians attempt to kill the Emperor and replace him with his more malleable son, Commodus.Commodus is a gladiator loving lug, who indulges in combat and games of war. He knocks skulls and fights barbarians, but is also the friend of Livius, the man whom the Emperor has chosen as his successor. After the Emperor is assassinated, a mild feud thus develops between Livius and Commodus. The politicians want Commodus to take the throne and he eventually does, Livius too kind and humble to stand in his way.Unlike Joaquin Phoenix's version of the same character in Ridley Scott's "Gladiator", Commodus is not an incestuous creep, but an illegitimate child with patricidal fantasies and delusions of grandeur. Narcissistic and tormented, he cuts Rome's ties with all its starving colonies and begins to promote his own imperial grandeur. Rome then becomes a sort of extension of Commodus' inferiority complex, an unconscious manifestation of his own psyche, which inflates and inflates and then comes crashing down, fatalistically crumbling, the illusion no longer supportable.We then launches into several subplots which attempt to describe the historical causes of the empire's collapse: rampant corruption, over expansion, civilisational clashes, inequality, trade problems, the collapse of civic responsibility etc. These issues aren't handled in anything but the most basic ways, but unless one adopts a far more abstract tone, perhaps they can't be handled otherwise.The film then delineates the admittance of a barbarian tribe into the folds of Rome. The barbarians are presented to the senate and arguments made for them to be granted land and citizenship. Livius and Timonides argue that Rome must "change" and be "flexible", that it should cease "conquering" and allow tribes to "freely join" and "trade", whilst Commodus and his cronies argue in favour for continuing Rome's ruthless hegemony.Nevertheless, the barbarians are given their own slice of land, and a sort of relaxed, multicultural Rome begins to form. Commodus detests this, however, and casually orders the massacre of Rome's barbarian citizens. Anthony Mann directed this picture, so of course when the violence comes, its a bit more hard hitting and realistically clumsy than other films of the era.The film ends with Commodus testing his divinity against Livius in a duel. Like the final battle in "Gladiator", they fight to the death, Commodus dying in Livius' arms and Rome's pomp and pageantry along with it.7.5/10 – Though one of the better "sword-and-sandal" epics, this film really highlights the limitations of its genre. Despite its daringly downbeat screenplay (the whole film oozes disillusionment), the fetishizing of the film's huge sets is annoying, the acting is stiff, the production mechanical and the music intrusive. Comparisons to "Spartacus" and "Gladiator" are apt, though "Spartacus" (1960) is far more affecting, going for broad emotions, less politics and more sweep, whilst "Gladiator" is primarily a revenge tale. Incidentally, it was David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" (which introduced an aesthetic which suddenly made Hollywood epics feel clunky), the rise of "bloodier epics" ("Zulu" (1964), Italian epics, "Bonnie and Clyde" etc) and the twin box office failures of Mann's "The Fall of the Roman Empire" and Ray's "55 Days at Peking", that pretty much marked the end of these big, Hollywood productions.Worth one viewing. Makes a good companion piece to "Ben Hur", "Spartacus", "55 Days at Peking" and "Lawrence of Arabia". Most of the other epics of the era – "Cleopatra", "The 300 Spartans", "The Vikings", "El Cid", "Robe" etc etc – haven't aged too well.

Catharina_Sweden I have been watching a lot of old epics about the Ancient Rome and Greece, the Bible, etc. lately. Those from the 1950:s and 1960:s are generally very good, so when I saw the great cast in "The Fall of the Roman Empire" I expected it to be a wonderful movie... But it was a disappointment.That is: it is very beautiful, I give it that. You could take lots of stills from all over the movie and make beautiful posters from them!. The photo is beautiful, the lovers are beautiful, and the props, costumes, armor, sets, interior decoration etc. are splendid and lavish. But still... it fails to capture one's interest. To put it plainly: it is boring.First, I think it is much too long. Half the length would have been enough. I think the subject-matter was also a problem. If one compares with the master-piece "Cleopatra" from 1963, everybody (almost) already "knew" Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Anthony. The audience already knew something about them, and had an interest in them. But few people, who are not especially interested in history, would have heard of Commodius. And his general, Livius, who is supposed to be the hero, is probably an entirely fictional character.Also, there is too little space for Livius to be heroic, and also too little love, I think. Too few love scenes combined with Loren and Boyd not really having the love chemistry between them. They are both cold, distant and wooden.Even if you watch these epic movies because you are interested in history, as in this case the ancient Rome, and want to learn a little from them and become more educated - the main thing is still the entertainment. And for that, you want love and heroism and characters that you can really get to know and love and identify with... which is what mostly fails in this movie.Christopher Plummer is awfully good as the weak and evil Commodius, though! Although of course it does not help much, as he is the villain. It is incredible that he could play the extremely masculine, handsome and heroic Captain von Trapp so perfectly only the year later! I mean, in this movie Plummer was not even handsome, and he even seemed slender and not very masculine at all. To be able to change that much for a part must be the mark of a great actor!