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

Quo Vadis is an engaging costume drama about life in Nero's Rome.The film is a love story between a roman soldier and a captive Christian woman. It is about the conflict between the pagans and the Christians and the persecution of Christians under Nero's rule. It is about Nero and his relationship with his sister and Petronius (who wrote Satyricon). There are a few sub plots as well - one involving Petronius' intense love affair with a slave (played by Martina Berti).The Christians in Rome look down on the debauchery of the pagan rulers while the pagans look at the Christians with a certain amount of fear. In a prolonged scene, a Christian priest conducts a secret meeting with some underground Christians. Parallels can be drawn to today's world where Muslims look down on the debauchery of the Westen world while the West consider Muslims to be backward.The action is limited to a chariot chase sequence and then the bloody finale in the coliseum. Quo Vadis is more of a drama than an action film like BENHUR or GLADIATOR. But the coliseum scene is spectacular. While not as opulent as CLEOPATRA, there are many epic scenes and long shots involving thousands of extras.I watched it in two sittings. I was impressed by Leo Glenn as Petronius. Deborah Kerr was very erotic even when she played a tame but devout Christian woman. Peter Ustinov nailed the role of the boorish Nero physically. But his dialog delivery was too theatrical. Marina Berti was nice eye candy. Robert Taylor was effortlessly macho as the Roman soldier.I bet Martin Scorsese loves this film.(7/10)

This is a classic of the golden era of Hollywood and one of the great epics that were filmed there. The action takes place in Rome in the time of Nero and crosses two distinct narratives: the life of this emperor, famous for his madness, and an impossible love between a pagan Roman general and a young crypto-Christian, hostage of the empire. The main characters are embodied by Sir Peter Ustinov (as the Emperor), Robert Taylor (as General Marcus Vinicius) and Deborah Kerr (as Lygia), three actors who have achieved in this film the top of their careers in both quality and popularity. But our eyes turns almost instinctively to Ustinov, who deserves a standing ovation because of his inspired interpretation. He did not act, he really incarnated the emperor. The deep accent of the British actor and his talent for declaiming helped greatly to accentuate the theatricality of the character, who was a deeply disturbed man, convinced that he was a great artist.Okay, I believe that little in this movie corresponds to the historical reality, but the truth is that today, fifty-many years after this film premieres, we have a deeper knowledge of Nero and his reign. By the time the film was shot, much of the information we had came almost exclusively from Roman chronicles written after his reign, deliberately designed to denigrate him. Either way, the movie is historically faithful to what we knew at the time and that is enough for historical rigor. The scenarios are truly exquisite, thought to the detail, and give the public a clear idea of ​​the grandeur of Imperial Rome and the Roman Fora. The soundtrack, by Miklós Rózsa, is fantastic and I consider it one of the most grandiose and epic ever composed for the cinema, although it often appears in the background and ends up overshadowed. The costumes have been very well made and are visually elegant. We still have to think about the huge effort to make a movie like this, with hundreds of full-dress extras and large-scale scenarios. With these films, we understand the true meaning of the term "dream factory", with which the people nicknamed the Hollywood studios.

It's 30 years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor) commands the XIV Legion and returns to Rome after a successful 3 year campaign. His uncle Petronius is a close counsel to Emperor Nero (Peter Ustinov). He meets general Aulus Plautius' daughter Lygia (Deborah Kerr) who was the daughter of the king of Lygia taken hostage when she was a child and then adopted. The household is secretly Christian. Vinicius gets Nero to give Lygia as a hostage to him. Lygia slowly teaches the brute Vinicius about the peaceful Christian ways. Poppaea (Patricia Laffan) is the evil wife of the impetulant Nero.The scale is grand. Peter Ustinov is terrific as Nero. Otherwise, the other actors are pretty stiff. Quite frankly, Robert Taylor is too good at playing the dislikeable arrogant general. I don't care about him or even his transformation. It's hard to develop chemistry that way. Deborah Kerr is overacting a bit or maybe she's a little too old to act that way. This needs to have a better couple at the head. They don't work but the other parts work better. Ustinov is the true star in this although the bull wrestling is impressive too.