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Quo Vadis Movie Review

Quo Vadis is a 1951 epic historical drama film directed by Mervin LeRoy and starring Robert Taylor, Peter Ustinov, Deborah Kerr and Leo Genn. It’s a surprisingly talkative movie.

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“It is not enough to live well.

One must die well“

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Roman general Marcus sparks rebellion when he falls in love with a Christian slave. When atrocities are performed on the Christians, Marcus saves his love and her family. This was one of the biggest films of its period in terms of box office, but also Academy Awards, standing at eight nominations. It was a big hit that isn’t as highly regarded today, but it deserves more attention as it’s a very strong, mostly surprisingly engaging film despite its length.

The film is very pro-Christian obviously, but I personally did not mind that as the exploration of the injustices committed against the Christians by the Romans was so well done and many scenes regarding this issue were quite tragic. The ending is obvious, but still epic. There are some excellent epic scenes here, the bull arena being particularly memorable.

Still, what surprised me the most here is its huge reliance on dialogue for better and for worse. You would expect from a three-hour epic movie to have a lot of impressively staged war and/or duel sequences, but you would be sorely mistaken as for the most part these scenes are non-existent in this particular feature.

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What you get instead are a lot of conversations about religion, freedom and the evils of slavery and insane emperors leading the nation. What I liked here is that many of these conversations were very interesting to follow and some were downright fantastic, especially when the people opposed starkly in their views. However, some parts definitely felt either overly didactic or too dated in the manner of speaking that was reminiscent of the fifties more so than the ancient time depicted in the film.

Let’s talk about the performers as they are the highlights of the picture. Robert Taylor is more bland and forgettable as Marcus, but his good looks made him a fine fit for this particular role. Deborah Kerr is excellent as Lygia. Some of the romantic scenes in the movie were definitely overly melodramatic and the movie favored the Stockholm syndrome dangerously so, but still this couple worked as individually they are likable and some of their lines of dialogue were sweet.

Leo Genn was quite strong as Petronius and he rightfully was nominated for an Oscar. His character was minor, but still important for the movie. Peter Ustinov to me is the main scene-stealer as the deranged Nero. He was so believable in the role that eventually Nero became the best-written character in the entire film. All of his scenes were magnetic and fascinating in psychological aspects first and foremost.

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Quo Vadis is definitely a technically stupendous achievement despite its favoring of dialogue and interior scenes rather than the outdoors epic grandeur. But when we got to see the streets and the corridors, they all impressed me. The production design is absolutely mesmerizing, making me long for the days without CGI. I loved the grandiose sets here, but also the terrific score, costumes and mostly very strong direction by the competent Mervin LeRoy. The pacing obviously wasn’t the best, but for such a long movie, it mostly holds your attention surprisingly well.