Quo Vadis

Released by: Warner Brothers
Released on: 3/17/2009
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov
Year: 1951
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The Movie:

Based on Henryk Sienkiewicz's novel of the same name, Mervyn LeRoy's 1951 epic, Quo Vadis, was nominated for a fistful of Oscars during the year of its release and went on to inspire quite a few similarly Biblically themed epics in its wake. A fairly massive production even by modern standards, it's a very lavish film with stunning production values and a great cast, but is it any good?

When the film begins, Emperor Nero (Peter Ustinov) is doing his thing, persecuting Christians and the like. His behavior causes a riff between he and one of his commanding officers, Marcus Vinicus (Robert Taylor) however, when Marcus falls for a hot Christian gal named Lygia (Deborah Kerr). As Nero's power mad antics result in a city set ablaze and a wife, Poppaea (Patricia Laffan), who screws around on him, with the rather insane emperor now on a rampage to kill every Christian he can get his mitts on, putting them to death in his massive Coliseum, much to the delight of the crowds of Roman spectators. Of course, Marcus and Lygia, not ashamed of their love or their faith in God and Christ, are soon captured by Nero's soldiers…

As bloated and overlong as Quo Vadis is, the film looks fantastic. The set design is beautiful, the costume and wardrobe work elegant and fine, and the scenes involving the marching legions of Roman troops at times quite breathtaking. The cinematography is perfectly lush and appropriately grand, complimented quite perfectly by a fittingly epic score courtesy of Miklos Rosza, who seemed to specialize in 'epic' having also scored the excellent Ben-Hur, King Of Kings, El Cid, Julius Caesar among countless others.

On an aural and visual level, Quo Vadis really is a remarkable film, but as well know, a good movie is more than just a bunch of pretty pictures. While the performances are uniformly strong across the board, particularly from Taylor and Ustinov who as are noble and despicable as you'd expect, the picture moves at a sometimes lethargic pace, weighted down by its own sense of grandeur, a victim of its own pomp and circumstance. Had the pacing been better and more emphasis put on telling an interesting story rather than overwhelming us with pageantry and awe inspiring shots of period Rome, Quo Vadis would probably have been a much better film. As it stands, when the story picks up, it's a solid movie, and quite an entertaining one, but there are too many extraneous bits that add very little to the film and only serve to slow it down. The film also really should have fleshed out Nero's character more to make him a more interesting villain. As it stands, he's sinister and mad enough that we can get behind Marcus and Lygia's struggle, but a but more psychological depth for Ustinov to toy with could have made for a more interesting antagonist rather than what is essentially a fairly hollow villain.

As is noted on the packaging for this release, the restored version of the film includes the original roadshow overture and exit music attached to the film for the first time in fifty-six years. Look for an uncredited and very brief cameo from a young Elizabeth Taylor as a slave girl.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Quo Vadis arrives on Blu-ray in a 1.37.1 AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer that looks pretty good. Yes, the limitations of the technology available to the filmmakers at the time are a little more readily apparent than they would be on standard definition in that matte lines are pretty noticeable but you can't fault the transfer for that. There is some really mild edge enhancement if you look for it and some mild ringing here and there but if you're not making a concerted effort to find them, you probably won't notice them much. Mild print damage and grain is evident throughout but never to the point of distraction while color reproduction looks nice and natural. Black levels are pretty strong and detail levels, while not quite on part with some Blu-ray releases, is also quite good. This isn't a perfect transfer, but it's definitely a good one.

The English language Dolby Digital Mono track sounds okay, but doesn't give the score quite as much weight as maybe it should have. That said, dialogue sounds good, the crowd scenes have a decent enough of power to them, and the levels are well balanced. There aren't any issues with hiss or distortion to note and generally things sound pretty good considering the age of the film. Optional mono tracks are provided in Castilian Spanish, Latin Spanish, French, German and Italian with optional subtitles available in English, French, Chinese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese and Swedish.

The main extra on this disc is a very in-depth critical commentary track from film historian F.X. Feeney who speaks to great lengths about the film's history and relevance. He covers the film's troubled production, its influence and influences, and provides a wealth of historical and biographical information about the film and the people who made it. There's a lot of information in here and while it might have been nice had he had time to elaborate on a few points here and there, Feeney does a good job of covering all of the bases in regards to Quo Vadis.

Also well worth a watch is the forty-five minute documentary featurette, In The Beginning: Quo Vadis And The Genesis Of The Biblical Epic. The featurette basically sets the movie up as the 'mother of all Biblical epics' and makes a case towards its influence on the various Biblical epics that came out of Hollywood in its wake. It's an interesting documentary and it fits in with the commentary track quite nicely.

Also included are some classy menus, chapter selection, and five minutes worth of theatrical trailers (a teaser and a standard trailer respectively) for the feature. All of the supplements are presented in standard definition.

The Final Word:

Quo Vadis has definitely has inspired moments, but they're too few and far between to make this one essentially viewing. That said, Taylor is pretty good in the lead and the cinematography is nice. Fans of old fashioned Hollywood epics will enjoy this more than casual viewers.