Demetrius and the Gladiators Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Demetrius and the Gladiators Blu-ray Movie Review

He is Spartacus.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 25, 2012

The rise of the popularity of television in the early fifties no doubt had the major studio moguls paraphrasing the Almighty and complaining to the masses that had deserted cineplexes in droves, “Hey! Thou shalt have no other Gods before me!” Fox’s CinemaScope widescreen process helped resurrect (sorry) prospects for the motion picture industry, and The Robe. the first CinemaScope feature, became one of 1953’s most successful films. While there was no guarantee that future CinemaScope offerings would strike similar gold (and 1954 saw the lackluster box office performance of Fox’s The Egyptian), a sequel to The Robe was already on the drawing board before the Richard Burton – Jean Simmons film had even premiered. Demetrius and the Gladiators takes several key players from The Robe, including Victor Mature as Demetrius, Jay Robinson as Caligula and Michael Rennie as Peter, and moves the story on after the martyrdom of the Burton and Simmons characters at the end of The Robe. Freed slave Demetrius, keeper of the robe that once adorned Jesus, ends up a gladiator in Imperial Rome, a pawn in an ever changing landscape dominated by Caligula, Caligula’s Uncle Claudius (Barry Jones) and Claudius’ duplicitous wife Messalina (Susan Hayward). The Biblical connection in Demetrius and the Gladiators is rather tangential, and so this film is much more of a swords and sandals epic, one that in subject matter if not scope or content presages Spartacus, that would come to dominate the epic genre for the rest of the decade (and slightly beyond). Big, colorful and more than a bit hyperbolic, Demetrius and the Gladiators is entertaining hooey in the finest early fifties’ tradition, laughable in terms of historical accuracy but absolutely riveting in terms of its pomp and pageantry.

Having divorced itself (for the most part, anyway) from Lloyd C. Douglas’ original source novel, Demetrius and the Gladiators tries to substitute pure spectacle for any quasi-religiosity, though Demetrius’ supposed crisis of religious conscience provides some of the putative drama for the film. This film is full of odd turns on a dime for at least two major characters—Victor Mature’s Demetrius, who goes from pious Christian to hedonistic pagan and back again seemingly on a whim, and Susan Hayward’s delightfully viperous Messalina, who spends the bulk of the movie exuding feminine wiles while cuckolding her husband, but who suddenly plays it straight and narrow as the film draws to its close. These weird tonal shifts mean that the film often plays like a live action cartoon, and seems to point to this almost being more of a kids’ entertainment than one for grown-ups, despite a couple of hilarious double entendres which fly out of Messalina’s lascivious mouth.

Audiences who originally saw Demetrius and the Gladiators theatrically were no doubt swayed by this spectacle while not minding the rather turgid dramatic underpinnings, but contemporary viewers may be rolling their eyes more than a little. While Jay Robinson’s Caligula is as weirdly abhorrent as he was in The Robe, fans of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius will certainly be perplexed at the version of that character here in Demetrius. This is no stuttering quasi-fool who is smarter than he appears. Instead in Barry Jones’ portrayal he’s a rather suave milquetoast who lets Messalina wear the pants in the family and basically tiptoes around the Imperial Palace not wanting to make waves.

Victor Mature, heavy lidded as always and looking more than ever like a cousin of Sylvester Stallone in this film, is dramatically out of his element and not as convincing as he perhaps surprisingly was in The Robe. Hayward is delicious in a role tailor made to her vampish charms. The supporting cast includes some great turns by Ernest Borgnine as the whip wielding master of the gladiators, Debra Paget as Demetrius’ love interest, and a very young (and virtually unrecognizable) Anne Bancroft as a sort of quasi-“working girl” who helps Paget’s character contact Demetrius after he’s sequestered at the gladiatorial academy.

The Biblical dictum to have “no other Gods before me” as well as the similar and linked pronouncements against worshiping false idols or making graven images seem to be lost on those who covet the robe in this film. The Christians venerate it as a symbol of their departed Savior, while Caligula wants it for the magic he thinks it contains. At least Caligula has the excuse of being a pagan, but one has to wonder about the theological implications for the “true believers” in Demetrius and the Gladiators. Luckily we’re dealing with the New Testament God here, or else some of these characters might have been thrown to the lions (or, as in the case in this film, the tigers).

Demetrius and the Gladiators Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Demetrius and the Gladiators is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Twilight Time with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.55:1. As has been mentioned repeatedly in reviews of previous Twilight Time releases, this niche label merely licenses pre-existing HD masters that are in their licensing partners' assets catalogs, and simply releases what they are provided. It's obvious that Fox, for whatever reason, did not lavish any restoration on Demetrius and the Gladiators as it did with Demetrius's progenitor The Robe, and the results here, while not awful, are certainly not very good either, and are a good deal (or more) below what the best CinemaScope high definition presentations have been in the past. The elements here have some minor damage, including scratches and several white blemishes that pop up from time to time, as well as density and flicker problems that, while not major, are certainly noticeable. There are also some brief moments where focus changes inexplicably, within the same shot. The color here has the kind of sickly brown appearance that often accompanies older faded Eastmancolor prints, though weirdly, some of the reds are incredibly vibrant. The image is rather soft quite a bit of the time and some of the midrange shots, including a couple culled over from The Robe itself, are pretty lackluster looking, with grain approaching noise levels and sharpness and clarity at the upconversion level. Twilight Time's Nick Redman is on record with Blu-ray.com's Robert Siegel as stating this high definition master comes from 2008, supposedly 2K scans of "intermediary elements" since the original camera negative was severely deteriorated. A lot of fans were no doubt hoping for another Robe experience with Demetrius, but alas, that's not to be. If that expectation is put aside, while this is not the release it could have been had Fox lavished a bit more care on it, it's an acceptable if unspectacular looking presentation that is certainly the best the film has ever looked on home video.

Demetrius and the Gladiators Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Demetrius and the Gladiators features a great sounding lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 audio mix that very aptly recreates the original theatrical experience. This was in the early days of multitrack theatrical exhibitions, and the sound mixers were obviously playing with widely splayed effects, including some ultra-directional dialogue, and that propensity is fully on display throughout this mix. Fidelity is really outstanding considering the age of the film, though there is a just slightly boxy sound to some of the dialogue, which might be due to post-looping. There are some occasional sound synch issues on display here that seem to come and go willy-nilly. These are never horrible, but astute viewers will clearly see very minor differences between lip movements and dialogue on more than one occasion. The Franz Waxman score and sound effects both are beautifully rendered here, with excellent fidelity throughout all frequencies and some great dynamic range.

Demetrius and the Gladiators Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Isolated Score. This hallmark of Twilight Time releases is especially appreciated here, with one of Franz Waxman's more towering efforts from the fifties. Waxman utilizes a couple of Alfred Newman's themes from The Robe while contributing lots of very colorful original scoring. As someone who has made at least part of my living for years Music Directing for countless churches and synagogues, I personally could have done with a little less of the tremolo-laden organ stops, which have a funereal sound to my ears, but otherwise this is a really rousing score, presented here via a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix.


• Original Theatrical Trailer (SD; 3:11)

Demetrius and the Gladiators Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Make no mistake about it,Demetrius and the Gladiators isn't a great film, but it sure is a fun one. Despite Mature's kind of stiff performance, the rest of the cast is great and the film is opulent and awesome in that gargantuan early fifties manner. This release is probably going to be controversial due to Fox's HD master, which is one of the less appealing ones the studio has released, either through its own auspices or as in this case, by virtue of a license to Twilight Time. While this is probably the best the film has looked on home video, some are probably going to wonder what a more serious restoration effort and a 4K scan might have done for Demetrius and the Gladiators. Even with that caveat, this is a hugely enjoyable release, one that features excellent audio and Twilight Time's hallmark of an isolated score. With expectations set properly vis a vis the image quality, this release comes Recommended.