Released 74 years ago, this is one of the biggest pumps ever made by Hollywood and will take 30 years to make his impressive record broken

In Hollywood, the religious theme has always gathered two successful elements: stories that are primarily universal (they are everyone talking), with a grand performance. There is also a great advantage: there is no right to adapt to buy millions of dollars or even royalties to pay; Characters that are in the public domain.

Hollywood was seriously threatening TV

“You have to remember that cinema has been very regularly converted to the Bible and Epic Stories when Hollywood is in danger” David Shepherd, Chester University Bible Teacher Specialist, in an interview with the BBC.

“At the beginning of the 20th century, the cinema returned to the Bible to prove its perpetrators that cinema was good and not evil power. In the 1950s it was a wonderful ladder of TV Cecil B. Demil To turn to the Bible and to produce or shoot such films Samson and Dalila” Ten Commandments Or Ben-Huri“.

In this competitive logic of television, which was in force in American homes, the Hollywood industry revived a wave of butterfums. Quo vadis, released in 1951, is one of its most illustrated representatives.

Signed by Merwin Leroy, the film is made by a very solid casting, in the middle of which Robert Taylor appears in the role of the title, and Deborah Kerry, a Christian woman whose Taylor is in love. And, first of all, absolutely brilliant and imperial Peter Ustinov – this is to say that -, the lover of the cruel Roman Emperor Nero, the poems and songs, which is drawn using her lyry, reveals it “Medium Level” As his Suetonius adviser in the film reminds us, in front of his mind, that the city of Rome swallowed by flame …

The most profitable film after “so many things get the wind”

The title of the film exactly puts the work in this vein of the Bible Butterfum, as it tells of the persecution of the first Christians. He is actually taken from punishment “Quo vadis dominates” (“Where are you going, Lord?”) The apostle Peter expressed it when Jesus Via Appia, at the exit of Rome, in the book of deeds.

Listening to the Messiah replied that he was returning to Rome to be crucified for the second time; Then he goes there and finishes according to the stories, humble himself, with humility “Unworthy death as Christ.”

Dor Char, a man who came to the top of MGM, Louis B. To change Meyer, he did not observe the cost. Produced by $ 7 million, or more than $ 87 million today, Quo Vadis was the most expensive film ever made and it was a huge commercial success. When he was released, he returned more than $ 21 million (more than $ 261 million today) and was the most profitable film in MGM since then.

Then Quo Vadis collected records: more than 200 spoken roles, 120 lions, bulls, 150 sets, 15,000 costumes, including 36 dresses, only for actress Deborah. And more than 30,000 additional to complete a large circus maximum reconstruction, where Christian martyrs were thrown into lions.

By comparison, a movie legendary tank race Ben-HuriWhich in itself required the preparation of a three -month shooting, showing the screen “only” 15,000 additional supplies. We, of course, are far from the incredible sequence of Gandhi’s funeral in Richard Pantalway’s film, with his 300,000 additions to the Gv Wed Records book, but still …