Sigh.....I might be more tempted to be religious myself if it ever seemed like religious people were having any fun. Instead, there are movies like "Quo Vadis," where Christians display all the vivacity of a wooden nativity scene."Quo Vadis" ushered in an era of Hollywood Biblical epics, stiff, pious, unwatchable pageants sprawled across movie screens in garish Technicolor. This three-hour film comes to life only a few times, almost all of them when Peter Ustinov shows up on screen as Emperor Nero and devours the scenery around him. Things also perk up a bit when the Christians are fed to the lions, a moment that's supposed to horrify us but one that we instead welcome with a sense of relief that we won't have to spend any more time with these boring and emotionless people. Even these scenes are rather desultory and could have taken some lessons from Cecil B. DeMille's jaw-droppingly tacky depiction of the same events in "The Sign of the Cross" from 1933.Deborah Kerr is lovely as always, but she fades into the background as the film's heroine, a crime for which I can never forgive the supremely pedestrian director Mervyn LeRoy. When you let Deborah Kerr fade into the background, you should have your DGA card revoked. Instead, he gives most of the screen time to Robert Taylor, who plays a Roman soldier like a macho, and a rather dim one at that. This film talks and talks and talks and talks for three hours and left me thinking that if I had been alive at the time, I would have wanted to hang out with Nero. At least there would have been better food.The Academy went ga-ga over this film and dutifully handed out eight Oscar nominations to it, though it went home completely empty handed. It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Ustinov), Best Supporting Actor (Leo Genn, another bright spot in the cast if only because his British accent makes the wooden dialogue more palatable), Best Color Art Direction, Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Dramatic or Comedy Score by Miklos Rosza, one of those jangling, harsh scores that appear to be a prerequisite for Biblical epics.Grade: D+

This movie was a fav of my mother's i have a copy on VHS I treasure originally the heroine was tied to the bulls horns not wanting to insure the star option was to tie her to a post Debra Karr is absolutely beautiful and Peter Ustinov is awesome as the flawed Nero

Copyright 4 December 1951 by Loew's Inc. An M-G-M picture. New York opening simultaneously at the Astor and Capitol: 8 November 1951. U.K. release: 28 September 1952. Australian release: 19 December 1952 (sic). Sydney opening at the Liberty. 171 minutes.SYNOPSIS: In the first century A.D., Marcus Vinicius, commander of the victorious Roman legions, returns to Rome after his conquests in Britain. He is honored by the Empress Poppaea. Soon he meets and falls in love with Lygia, a Christian hostage and the daughter of a defeated king. She spurns him because of his pagan ways. He the contrives to have Lygia given to him as a slave. But she still refuses to yield to him. Later Marcus follows Lygia to a meeting of the Christians where a sermon by the apostle Peter gives him a better understanding of her religious beliefs. She eventually falls in love with Marcus and consents to become his wife. However, he leaves her in anger when she refuses to abandon her Christian faith. Yet when the mad Emperor Nero sets fire to Rome, Marcus rushes to Lygia's rescue. NOTES: Negative cost: $7 million (including $2 million for an abandoned 1949 version produced by Arthur Hornblow and directed by John Huston, starring Gregory Peck and Elizabeth Taylor).Initial domestic rentals gross: $10.5 million, making it number 2 at the U.S./Canadian box-office for 1952. Equal 4th (with another Robert Taylor epic Ivanhoe) at U.K. ticket windows.Nominated for the following prestigious Hollywood awards: Best Picture (lost to An American in Paris); Best Supporting Actor, Leo Genn (lost to Karl Malden in A Streetcar Named Desire); Best Supporting Actor, Peter Ustinov; Best Color Cinematography (lost to An American in Paris); Color Art Direction (Also lost to An American in Paris); Film Editing (lost to A Place in the Sun); Music Scoring of a Drama or Comedy (also lost to A Place in the Sun); Color Costume Design (lost to An American in Paris).Number 8 in The Film Daily's annual poll of American film critics. Number 9 on the National Board of Review's Ten Best list.Filmed in Italy, at Rome's Cinecitta Studios.COMMENT: This, the first and only sound version of a once super- popular 1896 novel, inaugurated the Hollywood craze for spectacles. It established a formula, faithfully followed in most other epics of ancient and medieval pageantry: (1) Pots of money spent on sets, effects and costumes; (2) prestige actors in lead roles; (3) an always super-glossy but only occasionally imaginative technical finish; (4) an invariably weak script, often with quasi-religious shadings, in which one-dimensional characters muse at length in quaint English on the meanings of love, life, commitment and destiny.Quo Vadis is more entertaining than most of its successors. Although the love story is even more flaccid than usual — Miss Kerr makes her heroine boringly insipid — it does have some uncommonly strong performances, especially from Peter Ustinov, Leo Genn (this was the movie that made them both super-stars, though Mr Genn's reign proved less durable than the far more flamboyant Ustinov's), Patricia Laffan, Buddy Baer (his best role ever), and the ever-reliable Robert Taylor.On the whole, it's Ustinov who makes the most impression. His is by far the most colorful character. He has all the best business and lines — and makes the crowd-pleasing most of them!And of course there's the spectacle elements: richly vivid sets, hordes of extras, see Nero fiddling whilst Rome burns, Christians thrown to the lions, all that sort of stuff, expensively re-staged — and indelibly cheapened in the process. AVAILABLE on an excellent Warner DVD.

Apart from the good costume drama an excellent performance by Peter Ustinov and excellent orchestra this movie is nothing but Propaganda. First of all this was not a historical event though the characters are based on historical figures. It is based on a book by a 19th century Polish author the purpose being to emphasis Victorian value's through a romantic setting to be more aesthetic. This film for today is now completely out dated. This film should be only studied in film history or propaganda technique. the historical errors in it are great which makes criticism of this legitimate. For one "Christian" back then was not Christian in the Modern meaning of the word. Back then in modern terms Christian meant Messianic Jews not interested in Proselytising. It was not yet an established religion that later became differing sects with a lot of different gospels a century later adapting external influence's. These later early Christians were tolerated as was Roman policy and rarely thrown to the Lions. Also all Eastern cults were treated with cynicism at the time. Evidence also shows Nero helped and aided the innocent and vulnerable during the great fire but to improve on what had burnt he did not have enough cash which was his downfall. It is also funny how Christians rant and invent stories about their persecution but ignore the atrocities and intolerance of their own actions such as how they decimated the Pagans 400 years later after Nero whilst stealing their ideas. Who really is the victim?